The East Wind Blows
by ShirleyWatson
Summary: Moriarty's ugly mug plastered across every device in England is enough of a threat that Mycroft recalls Sherlock who, mere minutes into his exile, finds himself back in where he started. The threat to Sherlock, John, and Mary is dire, but the threat to everyone else is even greater.
1. Chapter 1

"In what kind of a crazy world do I find myself saying the words 'Thank God for Jim Moriarty?'" John rolls his eyes and sighs. They're all three of them packed into the back of the cab John and Mary arrived in, Sherlock sandwiched awkwardly in the middle.

"I should be sitting behind the driver, John," Sherlock elbows him in the bicep, vying for space. "Your wife is taking over the entire seat."

Mary snorts and settles into her seat more comfortably.

"I have an excuse, don't I," she mutters, and there's a smile in her voice.

They sit silently for a bit, each trying to jostle their perceptions around this unexpected turn of events. John is struggling mightily against grinning like an idiot for sheer relief.

"I have to say, Sherlock, there was one thing that bothered about your... precipitous removal." Something in her voice causes John to lean forward and try to catch her eye over the lapels of Sherlock's coat, but she's staring at her hands, the fingers of her right hand restlessly twirling her engagement ring. John bites his lower lip. Mary only fidgets when she's nervous and that is a rare thing.

He recalls her reaction to his story, told in broken sentences in the doorway of Sherlock's parents' home as he explained why he had returned alone - what had happened at Appledore. He was not prepared for her visceral reaction when he related Sherlock's last words: "She's safe now."

John had held her as she'd sunk to her knees, feeling nauseated as the scene played out in his head again, watching orange beads playing over Sherlock's face as he fell to his knees in defeat. "Why would he do that? Why John? Why? Why?" Mary had sobbed.

"Just going to leave that hanging out there, Mary?" Sherlock drawls rolling his eyes heavenward. John, wrenched back into the present, almost snaps at him, but Mary laughs shortly and looks up, her eyes flickering across John's gaze and settling to scrutinise Sherlock's profile. She inhales and holds her breath a moment.

"It bothered me-well obviously a great many things about it bothered me-but what bothered me most, was that you would not be around when Shirley's born." She finishes glibly. She might have been commenting on the weather.

"Well," Sherlock said after a moment, and the edges of his lips began tiling upwards into what John recognises as the beginning of an infuriatingly smug grin. "It would hardly be appropriate for the girl's godfather to be absent."

"Now wait just a minute-" John began.

"Then you will?" Mary overrides. "Oh, Sherlock-"

"I'll be present at the hospital, of course," Sherlock amends, a grin nearly splitting his face. "Not at the actual, physical birth. That would be highly inappropriate, wouldn't you agree, John?"

John stutters, his eyebrows rising nearly to his hairline. Finally pulling himself together he grinds out "Bit awkward, yeah. And how is it-how exactly is it that I don't get a say in this at all?"

"Shut up, John," Sherlock laughs. "Even I know the answer to that."

Mary sighs contentedly and leans her head down to rest on Sherlock's shoulder.

John gives his head a small shake and lets his breath out in a rush. "Clearly, I have a lot to learn," he mutters, taking the chance to elbow Sherlock back into the centre of the seat that he's been surreptitiously trying to annex. Sherlock begins to chuckle and the warm sound is welcomer than any other John can remember hearing lately.

It took an hour in heavy traffic to reach Baker Street. They were all quiet. John rather thought Sherlock is savouring his deferred judgement just a bit. Certainly, he isn't fidgeting in the car as much as usual though that could also be because Mary seemed to have dozed off against his shoulder. John found it odd that none of them brought up Moriarty's reappearance. By mutual unspoken agreement, they postponed that discussion till...later.

Sherlock bounds up the stairs of 221 Baker Street, running his fingertips over the wallpaper, and he slows as he enters the parlour. He stops just inside the door and breaths in deeply.

To John it seems that he is enjoying being home after never expecting to see the flat again.

That notion dies a quick death as Sherlock's eyes shoot open and he all but pounces on a manila envelope that John hasn't noticed among the clutter on the couch. Sherlock handles it gingerly and John feels his skin crawl. Sherlock brings it quickly over to the kitchen table and turns on the magnifying lamp that is still clamped to the edge.

John had not been able to bring himself to move anything of Sherlock's during the weeks he was held in the custody of the MI6. It would have felt too final. He is glad now that he hadn't.

Sherlock examines every millimetre of the envelope, sniffing it, staring at it, flipping the fold up slightly to peer at the glue consistency.

"This was delivered ten minutes ago," he says shortly. "It was on the couch, not the mantle, so we know that Mrs. Hudson did not deliver it. Ah, speak of the devil-" He says, and a moment later, Mrs. Hudson is framed in the doorway.

"Sherlock!" She cries, rushing in, her face split in a huge smile. "I knew you'd be back! John said not, but I never doubted for a second-"

"Yes, hello, Mrs. Hudson. John was wrong, and things are back to normal, yes? Did you see the man who delivered this envelope ten minutes ago?" he asks, hefting the folder at her.

Mrs. Hudson stares at him blankly. "I was in the hallway hovering ten minutes ago," she said. "No one was here."

"Nonsense," Sherlock snaps. "The glue on the flap is still gummy. It's a standard post envelope, which means that it was sealed less than fifteen minutes ago. A FedEx envelope would have an even shorter drying time. Sealed outside, judging by the piece of leaf caught just here and then walked round the corner from the regent's park, the only place with oak trees in the vicinity, about a five-minute walk, and delivered here. Someone was definitely here ten minutes ago," Sherlock explains impatiently.

"Been and gone unless-" His eyes widen.

"Where's Mary?" John says suddenly. He remembers. She'd scooted past them to go to the loo as soon as they had returned. He is half a step ahead of Sherlock, calling for her, banging on the door, which is locked. They hear a low moan on the other side.

White faced, John backs up, bracing to kick the door down when Sherlock interjects himself, kneeling in front of the door. He poked the straightened end of a wire clothes hanger through the small hole in the lock assembly, unlocking the door. John rushes past and jerks the door open. Mary is crumpled beside the bathtub, looking as though she is in the process of regaining consciousness.

"Oh my god-" John hisses, kneeling quickly in front of her.

"Touch only her, John," Sherlock said. "And both of you remove yourselves as soon as possible."

John nods, his fingers gently probing a growing red wheel of colour on Mary's cheek where it looks like she has hit the edge of the claw foot tub on her way down. His fingers slid over reddening marks on her neck and he clamps down on a spurt of rage that threatens to choke him.

"S'okay love, I'm ok," she croaks.

"Can you stand?" John asks softly, checking her pulse and smoothing her hair back.

"Think so, help me up-no don't touch the tub, that's where he was hiding," she says and John half lifts half pulls her into a standing position. "It's ok," she says after a moment, and her voice is stronger. She looks at John and over his shoulder to Sherlock.

"I didn't see him. I feel quite stupid, really. He was behind the shower curtain, standing in the tub. He waited till I passed then did something incredibly painful to my shoulder; pinched a nerve I suppose, because it more or less paralysed me. He held on and wrapped his other arm around my neck and suffocated me almost to the point of unconsciousness,"

She says all this as though she is reading from a book.

"The strange thing is, he laid me down backwards fairly gently. I came to just as he was up-and-outing through the window and I slammed my face on the tub 'cause I tried to stand up too quickly. The baby should be fine," she finishes, but her hands on her belly are trembling.

John is still half supporting her and begins to move her to the doorway. Sherlock studies her carefully, his eyes clouding as he sees the bruises blooming on her neck. As she passes, he reaches for her hand, grasping it lightly.

"Ok?" he asked hoarsely. She pauses and looked him straight in the eye.

"Pretty sure, Sherlock. Figure this out for me, ok?"

He nods and focuses his attention back on the bathroom.

"Oh Mary, oh I'm sorry! I never knew anyone was here!" Mrs. Hudson says hysterically, almost in tears.

"Not your fault, Mrs. Hudson, not at all." John answers for Mary and sits her down on the couch. He unbuttons the top two buttons of her shirt and feels down her neck and over her shoulders. She is bruising over her left shoulder, presumably where the man had borne down on her nerve. He asks her if her left arm is in any discomfort, if she feels a pins and needles feeling or any brief, shooting pains. She shakes her head. He gently placed his fingers on either side of her throat and asked her to swallow, and to hum.

"Would be easier to do with some tea," Mary answers wryly, but she really is so dry. Mrs. Hudson leaps upon the task like a tiger, so eager to be of help that she actually runs to the kitchen.

John takes her pulse and then pulls out his stethoscope, listening to her lungs and then lowering it to her abdomen where he spends some time listening to the two pulses beating strongly and slowly. She is so calm.

"Ice for the shoulder," he says when he is done. He puts his stethoscope to the side. "Nothing to be done for your neck," he continues. "It'll be sore when you swallow for a while-" he stops, unable to continue, and just kneels in front of her for a while.

"I know, love," she says quietly. They never talk about her past, but this statement speaks volumes.

"I know you're upset, John," she continues slowly, taking his hands in hers and squeezing as he looks incredulously into her eyes.

"Upset? Upset doesn't approach the bleeding edge of describing what-" he stammers and she squeezes his hands and nods.

"I know, I know. It's a violation, and you're afraid of what could have happened. I am too. I'm not a little embarrassed for being caught off guard. But it didn't happen. I can't wait till Sherlock figures out why it didn't happen. But I am fine, and I will be fine. Forewarned is forearmed. This was a huge misstep on someone's part, you know. They mean to terrify us. Do I look terrified, John?"

John shakes his head. She looks outwardly calm, but burning in her eyes is that which bodes ill for someone.

"Sherlock is going to find who was here," she continues, almost wistfully. "And when we three find him, I am going to put a bullet somewhere painful and sure. What do you think about the pelvis, Darling?" she asks, almost sweetly.

"Angle the shot obliquely," he answers grimly. "Make sure the bullet passes through the pelvic cavity and lodges in the hip. Saw that once, in the field. Said I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I stand corrected."

Mary nods seriously, and thanks Mrs. Hudson for the tea placed before her. She picks up the cup and her hand is steady. John realises that he has steadied as well. He picks himself up off the floor, shaking the blood back into his legs. He heaves a sigh, trying to exhale the rage and terror so that he can focus and concentrate and help. Mary smiles up at him then shifts uncomfortably.

"Sherlock's going to be in there ages," she says plaintively. "Mrs. Hudson, might I use your loo?" she asks and actually laughs.

The remaining ice melts in John's heart as Mary transforms back from a dangerous, dark thing who knows where the most painful place to shoot someone into his wife who is bumbling down the stairs.

Twenty minutes later, Sherlock stalks out of the bathroom. He does not look pleased.

"Nothing in there," he says. "Or rather, very little. Let's hope the envelope is more interesting. How are you, Mary?" asks, regarding her with narrowed eyes.

"Ok. Embarrassed more than anything. I should have been able to defend myself. And if you say anything about my 'condition,' I'll eviscerate you in your sleep," xhe adds, smiling.

He laughs, sneering slightly. "I need to look at your neck," he states abruptly, glancing at John uncertainly.

Mary snorts. "It's my neck, ask me. And of course." Sherlock motions her over to the kitchen and angles the magnifying light up to shine on the bruises on her throat. He tilts Mary's head gently this way and that peering at her skin, and then picks a few pieces of khaki lint off her blue shirt with a pair of tweezers.

"Looks like he was wearing a canvas jacket," he comments, placing the lint in a plastic bag.

Mary nods. "It was a bit rough. I think I remember a buckle or something hard pressing against my back, but not hard enough to leave a mark or anything. I wasn't really focusing on the texture of his clothing at the time while being strangled," she finishes.

"How careless," Sherlock snarks, and Mary punches him in the arm on her way back to John and the couch.

He turns to the envelope. It's blank, not addressed to anyone. There is something hard and heavy in it. He tears through the top with a kitchen knife and empties a phone onto his hand. Sherlock's brows slam together as he stares at the phone.

"Déjà vu," John says.

"That is precisely why this does not make any sense. Sherlock says before turning the phone on. While he waits for it to load, he looks at John with a puzzled expression. "Moriarty doesn't repeat himself," Sherlock said slowly. "It's... boring..." He sits in his wingback chair, phone cradled in his hands.

"Plus," Mary supplies, "You saw him die. If it had been anyone else, I'd say they might have been mistaken, but I doubt you were."

Sherlock nods absently.

"So, someone else has taken Moriarty's place and is doing this on his behalf," John says.

"Perhaps," Sherlock says. His brows are still furrowed. "We don't have conclusive data."

"But you saw him die." John insists.

"And you saw me die," Sherlock snaps. "I am human, John. And I don't know of anyone else who could broadcast himself over such a large band."

The phone has loaded, and Sherlock sifts through the empty contacts list, the empty text message queue, the empty voice mailbox and pauses when he reaches the image file. It is full.

He begins scrolling through the images and rolls his eyes.

"What?" Mary as he groans dramatically.

"This," he says and waives the phone in their direction, "is definitely not Moriarty's," He tosses the phone on the coffee table. "It's too puerile, too heavy handed."

John scoops up the phone.

There were pictures of all of them taken from within the house. Several featured John and Mary in intimate positions in their bedroom, and there were many of Sherlock sleeping and even a few of Mrs. Hudson doing Mrs. Hudson-y things.

John's brows knit. "And this is meant to do what?" he asks. "Intimidate us? Make us uncomfortable?"

"It seems likely." Sherlock nods.

"If I had known we had an audience, I would have done more to embarrass them," Mary says sneering.

John laughs a short, sharp laugh, slapping her thigh lightly.

"Whoever is behind this does not seem to know us very well," she finishes.

Sherlock regards her like some kind of prize horse at a fair. "Exactly. Which is why we can assume it's not Moriarty. This person is aping the mannerisms of someone trying to terrorise us. Moriarty would have found a way to actually accomplish that.

John thinks about the Pool Incident and nods fervently.

"So, my current theory, that someone else is pulling the strings for Moriarty posthumously, is looking more and more likely. It's consonant with the activity in Moriarty's organisation that I've been picking up recently. Things are getting cleaned up and tied up, but in ways that are totally incongruous with Moriarty's MO. It's almost as if someone's ticking off check boxes. We're just the next box, and next to it there's written something like, 'Don't just kill them. Make it hurt.'"

John nods and feels unaccountably relieved.

"Still," Mary says soberly, "there was a man that managed to get into this flat without anyone noticing and almost kill me. He could have too. Bit not good. Can't let that happen again. If your theory is correct, it was another gambit to terrorise us. Really, though, what idiocy. Moriarty would have just murdered me, turning the two of you against each other. She motioned at Sherlock. "Playing your guilt off of John's rage, he would have watched the two of you tear each other apart," she finishes thoughtfully, staring at her teacup cradled in her hands. After a few moments of silence, she looks up meeting John's stricken gaze and Sherlock's surprised one.

"Sorry, are you the only one allowed to figure stuff like that out?" she asks Sherlock, smirking.

He snorts and rolls his eyes.

"Bit not good though," John says, "him getting into the house. And we should tear out the spy eyes."

"Obviously." Sherlock states, glancing around him wondering belatedly if the place is bugged as well.

"Hey," John says, "what if the place is bugged as well? We've just shown our hand."

Sherlock shrugs. "Worst that can happen is escalation. That'll only make it easier to catch the bastard," he says and quirks an eye at Mary. "Or bitch, for that matter."

Mary has the grace to flip him off.

The rest of the afternoon is spent ordering and devouring takeout and playing seek and destroy with the spy eyes based on the positioning in the pictures, plus a few that Sherlock just guessed at. John and Mary canvass their room and find the spy eye in the shelf half way up the wall across from their bed.

"Want to give him one last show, John?" Mary asks saucily. He laughs, folding her to him and laying a lingering kiss across her mouth.

"If voyeurism strikes your fancy, my love, let's find someone more worthy of the show," he says then flicks off the spy eye before ripping it off the wall.

Mary giggles.

Later on that night, John and Mary curl up together in his bed. He spoons around her, nuzzling the back of her neck as she jostles around, trying to shift her belly into a somewhat more comfortable position. Finding it, she stills, and all that can be heard for a time is John's soft breath in her ear.

"Darling," she pauses, stroking his hand across her breast. He props his head up on his other hand, looking down at her profile pressed against the pillow. "You don't mind, do you? I didn't think- I mean Sherlock's the obvious choice for godfather-"

"Of course," John is quick to agree, quick to remove any trace of uncertainly that Mary has done exactly the right thing in that regard by tightening his hold on her body briefly. "Though, he'll never let me live down naming her Shirley, thank you very much."

Marry giggles and the vibrations this causes against John's sternum are a delight. "I can't believe it though," he says softly. "I thought-I thought he was gone. Again. I was sure-" There is silence for a time, each of them contemplating a life without Sherlock in it, especially after the events following their return.

"He would have found a way," Marry says softly, uncertainly.

John shakes his head.

"Not this time. This time he has gone too far. Mycroft can't just let him off. There were witnesses. Hopefully catching whoever is heading up Moriarty's ring now will be enough to barter for a full pardon." Mary snorts and John feels her heart rate increase fractionally against his hand.

"To think that after all he's done, that this can't be swept away. Magnusson needed killing," Mary's snarls, and her voice contains a hint of steel in it that John never noticed before the revelation of her past. Hearing it, like a sharp knife sheathed in silk, causes his breath to hitch in his throat.

Sternly, he knuckles down his reaction.

"John," she continues, and her tone is completely incongruous with their position. "Sherlock is the right choice, but not just because he's your-because he's our friend.

"Today proves - I mean think about the events of the past years. Think about the life choices we have made and try to tell me that you think for one moment that our daughter will be born into a safe, secure, normal world."

She continues before he can answer. "Sherlock made us a promise at our wedding, and he meant it, John. He meant it so much that he sacrificed his own future for me-for us. I am counting on him to do the same for our child. If a time comes something happens to us-when we can't-and she's in danger-and now there's this new threat so close-" her voice had been rising, becoming more tense and finally it broke. John sat up pulling her with him, gently cradling her head in his hands and pulling her away from him so that he could see her face, meet moist eyes dark with uncertainty.

"Mary, you are right about the danger, and I am as utterly terrified as you are. And I am as sure as I am terrified that the world will burn before Sherlock would let harm come to our child.

"Because, should that eventuality arise, whatever danger that threatens will already have consumed a deadly assassin, a capable military man, the British Government himself, and Mrs. Hudson with a frying pan. By that point our daughter will be the only heart he has left and he will protect the heart at all costs, Mary. As he has successfully done so far."

John wound down and his thumbs absently trace circles at Mary's temples where they rested as he cradles her head in his hands. Her eyes are not longer moist, and there is a challenging set to her jaw and a flush rising on her cheeks.

"We will be fine then, John," she says, and her voice is firm. "The four of us."

After several moments more of muted sounds of sheets rustling and kisses given and received, the bar of light shining into the hall from under the door vanishes and silence falls.

For several moments Sherlock does not move from his position against the wall. Then his fingers stiffly disengage from their grip on arms crossed against his chest and he leans his head backward softly, squeezing his eyes shut.


	2. Chapter 2

He had not meant to eavesdrop, but as he passed the door, he had heard his name and stilled just long enough to realise that he had to hear the rest of what they were discussing. In one moment, Mary resurrected his darkest fear and in the next, John dissolved it.

Quietly, he continues down the hall, absently avoiding the creaking board to the left of the parlour door and seating himself on the leather sofa, his robe fluttering to rest around him. He steeples his fingers against his lips and shuts his eyes.

Moriarty is back in one form or another. Sherlock had discovered much of his web as he had systematically hunted down the assassins assigned to John, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade.

He realises now that he should have recognised the signs as far back as a year ago. Minor activity, this arms dealer getting paid off, that drug cartel going under. It is as though someone is cleaning house, consolidating what was left of Moriarty's organisation and setting up for something...new.

Immediately, scenarios began unwinding behind his eyelids.

-John gunned down after Sherlock is lured away.

-Mary killed.

-Both of them killed.

-Mycroft coming to the door with the dead look in his beady little eyes, informing him that there's been an accident, no survivors.

-Mary going into early labour-something in the tea.

-John screaming from a rooftop.

-Sherlock falling to the ground, dying, unable to protect them any longer, knowing -knowing - that the instant his heart stopped, Mary, John and Shirley, his family, his heart would be cut out.

-Moriarty controlling John as John guns him down.

-Moriarty controlling Mary, forcing her to choose between her daughter and her love.

-Moriarty.

-Moriarty.

**Moriarty.**

Sherlock's eyes snapped open. Moriarty is dead. Sherlock had actually watched the actual bullet fly through his actual fucking head. It was no act, it was no charade. Moriarty _is_ dead.

And the idiot he left in charge to try to make things right is doing a terrible job. Should be easy to find. He rises swiftly and flings his coat over his shoulders and sweeps out the door, only to freeze at the top of the stairs.

No. Not alone this time. It was expected, and it would be foolish to be so predictable. Slowly Sherlock removes his coat, methodically dropping it on the floor and sinks back into the couch, steepling his fingers again in front of him.

It is always possible that the recent attempt on Mary and the phone are purposefully clumsy in order to lure them into underestimating the threat. Sherlock shakes his head sharply.

Never doubt the obvious without good reason. Still, the possibility is there. If Moriarty left detailed instructions, even someone of Lestrade's calibre could follow them. It might not turn out as poetically as if the actual master directed it personally, but there would still be a very definite result. Sherlock shakes his head again, gathering thoughts that fray into a thousand threads and knitting them back into a cohesive cord

#1 Objective. Safety. For all of them, since he has to stay safe to protect them. And really he admits to himself, he's pushed John to the breaking point once too often. Actually dying wouldn't help anyone at all.

Sherlock grimaces, hating it, but he knows what comes next. Before he can stop himself his phone is in his hand.

The Diogenes Club has strict rules about the presence of annoying electronics, specifically mobiles. After only one infraction, a member was no longer a member, plain and simple.

Mycroft distinctly _doesn't_ jump when his phone blasts off the first two measures of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in the middle of the silent parlour. Papers rattle, coughs rasp and glares pierce the room in his direction, one gentleman's complexion actually purpling in rage.

Mycroft calmly removes the offending device from his breast pocket and thumbs the volume button on the side, bringing crashing silence back down upon the Diogenes once more.

Not a paper rustled, not a sniff sounded as he neatly gathers the pieces of the file he is perusing into their folder, rises and walks slowly through the door, through the lobby and into the cool drizzle of London at night. Once outside, he gives himself a few moments to breath deeply then presses redial.

"Sherlock," he intones when his brother picks up. "To what do I owe the distinct displeasure?"

"Nonsense, Mycroft, Diogenes can't expel you, don't pretend to be annoyed about that."

"What do you want, Sherlock? It happens I am otherwise, and distinctly more interestingly, occupied."

"Occupy yourself instead with setting a surveillance team on 221 Baker Street."

"And how long will you require the _help_ of Her Majesty's finest?" Mycroft sneers.

"Indefinitely. There's already been an attack. And I need a team to run surveillance footage of the south-east corner of Regent's Park between Sussex Place and York Gate between 13:10 and 14:00 hours today. We're looking for a man or woman with a manila envelope. Quick as you like." The line goes dead.

Mycroft frowns down at the phone. He ordered surveillance on Baker Street as soon as his brother's plane banked in the air. He intended to keep an eye on Sherlock, make sure he was focusing. Apparently that's not all he has to watch for. And apparently, Sherlock is sufficiently focused. But he won't tell Sherlock he had already made the order. It never hurt to have him feel as though he owed Mycroft a favour.

He texts the appropriate operatives and orders the footage from Regent's Park scanned and any images of the target or targets forwarded to him as soon as they are found. He then texts the head of the surveillance task force in place at 221 Baker Street informing him that, despite his efforts, an intruder had breached the premises and that he is released from duty. This task completed, he pockets the phone and turns back to the door and enters the parlour of the Diogenes club.

He walks right up to a scowling gentleman who blocks his passage into the parlour and stops just as the tips of his Barker Blacks came into contact with the other's toes and he stares down his nose, quirking his eyebrow.

With a barely audible growl, the gentleman blocking his way moves to the side. Mycroft waits a moment longer until the door is opened for him before making his way back to his fireside seat and reopening the file in front of him. Tea is deposited on the cherry table next to him and he sips it absently as he regards the picture attached to the file.

Mary's Morstan's eyes, glare back at him from under the brim of a black knit cap in the image taken at Magnussen's office building. Well, nothing comes without a price, he thinks smugly.

Sherlock throws down the phone, scowling. It isn't enough. If Moriarty is somehow posthumously pulling strings, then Mycroft's forces will not be enough to protect them. And he had to protect them. His fists slam into his thighs hard enough to bruise. Mary and John were depending on him to keep them safe. Leaving this time wasn't an option.

The presence of Mycroft's henchmen would keep another incident like the "gas leak" from occurring, but there were other more surgical ways of causing pain that would be harder to guard against.

But they had some time. He is totally certain that the Moriarty Threat would not move until Mary had given birth, otherwise Mary would be dead at this moment and John would be inconsolably and resolutely ripping Sherlock apart for not preventing it. Sherlock shakes his head to dislodge that could-have-been. The threat will wait to strike until the blow can do the absolute most harm. Sherlock's eyes narrow and his breathing quiets

_Never._ He vows to himself. _Never will harm come to them. I can do it. I can protect them. It's not Moriarty himself, but a puppet. I will cut the strings_. He thinks and is painfully aware that he has come close to admitting that he wouldn't be able to beat Moriarty himself.

The next day dawns on Sherlock still sitting on the couch, fingers steepled in front of his lips. As soon as the clock hits eight he makes several phone calls then descends the stairs to Mrs. Hudson's apartment and begins hammering on her door.

Several minutes later, the door is yanked open and a sleepy looking Mrs. Hudson, glared out at him

"Sherlock, I'm thrilled you're back, but-"

"Get packing Mrs. Hudson." Sherlock cut her off, looking beyond her into her foyer, trying to assess from his limited view how long it would take her to get her apartment sorted.

"What? Sherlock-"

"I've called a moisture remediation and remodelling firm. The owner owes me two extremely large favours. By Sunday, your basement apartment will be as warm and cosy as you like. And you should downsize at your age." He leaned into her doorway looking around "Honestly, such a large place for one person. Sinful.

"Sherlock what on earth are you-"

"Mrs. Hudson, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume for thirty seconds that there is actually some spark of innate intelligence under that mask of babbling banality you show the world, and that you can access said intelligence sufficiently to understand the predicament you're in." he looked down at her, clearly expecting her to understand. He found himself disappointed.

"Fine, I'll explain: Mary will be giving birth between 34 and 36 days from now. She and John have looking for flats with more room than hers and obviously they can't live with me. Surely you can see..." He left the sentence trailing. Mrs. Hudson shook her head.

"Sherlock, I think it's lovely Mary's expecting, and of course they wouldn't want their child growing up in the same house as you." She says laughing, completely missing his sudden scowl. "But I don't really see what any of that has to do with me-"

"Dear idiot, I will be your only tenant when John leaves." Sherlock says. "You will be living in this house alone. Alone with me." Watching horrified realisation dawn on Mrs. Hudson's face is a pleasure worth the wait.

"At my age Sherlock, I should really be downsizing-honestly, this old place is so big for me, and-"

"Boxes will be delivered at ten." Sherlock says and turns away in a swirl of coat. Now is time for the hard part.

John awakes to the smell of a fry-up and smiles with his eyes closed. He hears Mary sniff appreciatively as well and realises abruptly that she is still in bed. The same thought evidently occurs to her and they both sit bolt upright simultaneously.

"Is that?"

"Is he?"

"S'got to be Mrs. Hudson."

"Yeah, yeah. But what if-"

They both scramble out of bed, wrapping appropriate garments around themselves as they walked quickly down the hall and into the parlour. Humming resonated from the kitchen and Mary presses a hand against her mouth to stifle a giggle.

John waits until she had control of herself and then they walk into the kitchen as though Sherlock is not standing in it wearing an apron over his tailored shirt and portioning out bangers onto already loaded plates on a table that actually had an actual tablecloth on it.

"Wow, uh," John starts as he sits down. Mary almost loses control of herself again as she awkwardly slides into her seat. "Didn't know we had a tablecloth," John finishes lamely.

Sherlock shakes his head and descends on the third chair after having practically pirouetted back to the stove to divest himself of the now empty fry pan.

"Didn't," he says shortly, hefting a fork. "Mrs. Hudson's downsizing. We got a tablecloth and a tea pot." John's fork stops half way to his mouth.

"Downsizing? At 9 am on a Saturday? And breakfast? Cooked? By you? I didn't even know you knew how to USE a fry pan. What the bloody hell is going on?"

"First of all, you're welcome for the meal, it's no trouble at all. Eat." Sherlock waits till John automatically connects fork to mouth before continuing.

"Secondly, Mrs. Hudson's moving to the basement after realising how much trouble it has become taking care of such a large flat. At her age. You know. Thirdly."

John picks up his teacup and takes a sip. Sherlock rushes into the breach.

"You and Mary are moving into the downstairs apartment which I believe should be quite big enough for you, Mary and up to two children.

Only Mary's quick reflexes keep her from being doused the tea that is forcibly projected from John's mouth.

"What makes you think we WANT to move downstairs from you, you egomaniac? I mean, honestly? You can't sit there and dictate our-"

"Two children?" Mary interrupts quietly, her hands on her abdomen. "Sherlock, John and I don't plan on..."

Sherlock is pushing beans and bangers around his plate as though he's trying to divine the future from the trails of grease left in their wake. Utter silence fills the room.

"There is absolutely no way you can know-" John begins

"Elevated HCG levels reported three weeks ago," Sherlock snaps, rolling his eyes. "And take into consideration the angle of distension and proportion of your abdomen which considering your height and weight is rather extreme, Mary, and remember the incredibly intense morning sickness that utterly ruined your honeymoon-Honestly, Mary, what the hell good is your obstetrician?" he finishes with some heat, finally raising his eyes to meet hers. "She should have told you," he adds lamely.

Silence reigns for awkward moments.

"I should have-" John began. Sherlock's elaborate groan cuts him off.

"John stop being so irritatingly self deprecating. You have many more appropriate inadequacies to gripe about than continually missing obvious prenatal signs in your wife. I mean just how extensive was your obstetrics training before they shipped you off to Afghanistan?" Sherlock says petulantly.

"You and Mary _must_ move in downstairs. Aside from whatever dubious pleasure I might derive from your continued proximity, your habitation of this house absolutely is necessary to your safety and your children's safety.

"I can guard all four of you more effectively from here than almost anywhere else I can think of. Unless you'd see your way clear to move you and your family into a Yurt in upper Mongolia. All of my resources will be bent towards making this place impregnable.

"Also remember that recent efforts have been made to create a sense of violation, clearly with the intent of causing you to leave and making it necessary to split our efforts. Would you give in so easily to such manipulation?

"And I cooked you breakfast so you actually can't say no. I even bought sticky buns."

He produces them from a box on the counter with a flourish. Mary stares at the box absently.

John knows her so well he can almost feel her straining her senses inwards, trying to make out two individual shapes while knowing that it is impossible, knowing that she hasn't heard a thing Sherlock said after his declaration that she is having twins. Sherlock looks nervously between the two of them.

"Mary, obviously you're the decision-maker here," he says, ignoring John's sound of protest. "Surely you see the sense of it."

Slowly Mary becomes aware that Sherlock is still talking to her and that some answer is required.

"What? Oh, downstairs? Yeah, yeah that's fine, need to repaint, can you tell if they're both girls?" she asks, smiling.

"Now wait just a bloody minute," John explodes. "You have made all the decisions and I have taken this all on the chin and no complaints. But Mary, you actually want to keep living here? With our children? In a house where there are heads in refrigerators?"

Sherlock and Mary regard John with identical looks of surprise, which change into something that might resemble hurt on Sherlock's face. Mary notices and stiffens in anger. John felt the winds of the oncoming storm too late.

"John," Sherlock said in a colourless voice, "everything I have suggested, I have suggested for the sake of you, Mary, and your children. Despite what you may think, I remember being a child myself and I would never expose yours to anything-unsuitable.

"Sherlock, that's not what I-"

"Since you have decided that the risk of subjecting your children to my company and possible influence outweighs the risk of external dangers, we will of course bin this plan and find a suitable alternative." He pushes his chair away from the table and stands, his expression wooden.

"I will speak with Mycroft and he will have a list of alternative solutions by this evening, and you and Mary may discuss them," he finishes quietly, and before John can breathe again, Sherlock vacates the kitchen.

John stares at his plate.

"Well," Mary snarls softly. "Cocked that right up, didn't you?" And she, too, is gone.

John hears the sound of things banging about in Mrs. Hudson's apartment buries his head in his hands. The words of Sherlock's best man's speech echo in his mind.

"You sit here between the woman you have made your wife and the man you saved. In short the two people in the world who love you most."

They are banding together around him and offering sacrifices to his happiness and he is treating it like an attack.

Clenching his fists, John gets to his feet and goes into the parlour where Mary is sitting on the couch, regarding him coldly.

"See," he begins, "the problem here is that you-" he cuts himself off as Mary's expression hardens and looks down, immediately changing tack.

"The problem is that I am powerless, Mary. You two - you two bloody well have it all figured out. And of course you're both right, you're right about everything. We're having twins. Baker Street is the safest place for us. One of them will be named Shirley, after her godfather. These are all the right decisions and I haven't thought of a single one of them." He is aware that Mary has risen and is standing in front of him, reaching for his hands.

"Do you know why I love you John?" She asks. The non sequitur catches him off guard. "There are a million reasons. I've told you lots of them. You're a kind, compassionate, loving, intelligent, man, and even in this state I'd like to fuck the daylights out of you every blessed moment I'm with you. Another reason I love you is because you and I can always tell each other the truth-don't dare look at me like that. I learned this the hard way. I'm going to tell you some truths now.

"If I had to choose between you and Sherlock, now, I would choose you. If you tell me that we need to leave here or you'll be unhappy, I will follow you because I love you. If you are genuinely worried about our children growing up around our pet madman, I will humour you, though I utterly disagree. But, John, I like being in this house. I have come to love Sherlock. I want a family." She pauses as her voice hitches, then continues somewhat louder.

"And, you-Sherlock, you sneaky bastard, I hear you breathing behind the doorway so just bloody well come out and let's settle this." John doesn't shift his gaze away from Mary as Sherlock rolls around the doorjamb and into the room. He stands obliquely to one side of them, not looking at either of them.

"Sherlock," **John says quietly, tilting his head sharply, nervous**. "I will ask you one question, and I have an excellent lie detector here so you'd better answer it truthfully. Do you genuinely want Mary and me and our squalling babies living below you? Do you really want to be part of our lives like that? Because I feel I already owe you enough already. I don't want to owe you for this too. I don't think I can repay a debt that big."

Sherlock stares at the floor as if willing words to appear out of the grain of the wood. Finally he speaks, and his voice is so quiet John almost had to lean in to hear it.

"I would be privileged to be as much a part of your lives as you will allow me."

Mary produces something between a sob and laugh and reaches for Sherlock's hand. John nods and feels the last dregs of anger drain away.

"You might regret it, you know," he says, and there is a teasing quality to his voice that allows Sherlock to lift his eyes.

"No need for heads in the cooler after I convert your room to a lab," Sherlock retorts, his lips quirking upwards.

"Just put a lock on the door for heaven's sake Sherlock." is Mary's final word on the matter.


	3. Chapter 3

Mary's baby shower is held late in her pregnancy: only two weeks before her due date. It had taken longer than they expected to get Mrs. Hudson moved downstairs and them moved in, not the least because everything took longer to do themselves. By mutual agreement, they didn't want anyone they didn't know well messing around in the house for security's sake even though Sherlock insisted that it is extremely unlikely that they would be bothered until the children were born.

Mary had confessed to John that the site of Sherlock, sweaty and bored with paint smeared on his cheek had been well worth the inconvenience.

Neither Mary nor John have use for antiquated conventions so everyone they knew is invited to the shower, not just the ladies. The apartment looks enough like a home after a fresh coat of paint and updated kitchen appliances and furniture that John finds himself happy to have visitors and thrilled to have a place to put them. The flat has a foyer and a huge parlour that opens into a respectable galley kitchen. Down a hall off the parlour are two bedrooms each with an adjoining bath, an unbelievable luxury.

He wandered between guests, talking cheerfully to his mates from the clinic and from the Yard and generally orbiting Mary who sat in state on the sofa in the living room moving as little as possible.

Sherlock arrived towing a visibly uncomfortable Mycroft in his wake.

"Ah Mary, you're looking absolutely lovely. Glowing." Mycroft says as he leans over stiffly to kiss the air next to Mary's cheek and places a long, thin box in her hand.

"Nonsense Mycroft, I look like a beached whale but thanks anyway, and thanks for coming. Help yourself to some bubbly and canapés. John is around-" And Mycroft is spun away by John at that very moment.

Sherlock looks down critically at Mary, his eyes taking in every inch of her gravid self before gently but firmly taking her wrist in his hand. She rolls her eyes as his middle finger finds her pulse.

"Sherlock. Jesus, I'm pregnant not dying-" she begins what has become a familiar diatribe. He'd been treating her like egg shells for the past three weeks. John's noticed but seems pleased rather than annoyed which she finds even more aggravating.

"As you said, big as a beached whale and putting no little strain on that cold little heart of yours." Sherlock says absently. "You're not built for bearing twins-" He breaks off as Molly, having overheard, grabs his arm and hauls him bodily toward the buffet, catching Mary's grateful look.

"Sherlock," she hisses as he starts to struggle, "Shut it! You can't say things like that to-it'll upset her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Sherlock scoffs, shaking off her arm and shooting the cuffs of his jacket. "Besides, you're medically trained. She's not built for this and you know it. John's so besotted he hasn't noticed the potential issues..." He stops abruptly as he notices the bemused look on Molly's face.

"How is it you suddenly know so much about pregnancy Sherlock?" she asks, barely suppressing laughter. He sneers down at her but finds himself unable to manage any kind of rebuttal. After some consideration, he shakes his head, seeming to come to a decision.

"Frankly, Molly, I am worried about her. And honestly John should be too. And so should you be. She seems fine now but she can barely move and hasn't had a good night's sleep in over a month. She's lost her appetite and her blood pressure's all over the place and..." he stopped again. Molly is positively grinning. "What?" he asked loudly, outrage colouring his voice. "Is it a crime to be concerned?" Molly simply shakes her head and hands him her untouched glass of champagne.

"You need this more than I do. And don't worry. It's called being a pregnant woman you berk."

"Berk? You little-" John's hand clamps down on Sherlock's arm and Sherlock shuts his mouth. Annoyingly, John is grinning.

"Thanks for your concern, Sherlock. I do understand it, but really, Mary's doing just fine. She is."

Sherlock clenches his teeth and then abruptly downs the entire glass of champagne in one long drought. When he lowers the glass, his lips twist into a somewhat manic grin.

"All right John! Fine it is, fine it is." He says and turns away for a refill. He hears the parlour door open and senses an active, thick stillness flow from John behind him.

The stillness spreads through the room as conversations fade and die, ostensibly as guests notice whatever has riveted John's attention. Taking a deep breath, Sherlock turns slowly to face the door.

A woman stands in the doorway. Her resemblance to John is so extreme there can be no doubt who she is. Her sandy blond hair is shot with grey and her skin sags around her jaws. Every alarm bell in Sherlock's head goes off at once as John starts toward her and then stops as she stiffens.

_WEAPON! WEAPON! WEAPON! WEAPON! WEAPON!_

The word sears across Sherlock's mind repeatedly and he scrutinizes her trying to find where she hid it. A quick look over his shoulder shows him that Mary is quickly getting over her surprise and judging by the expression on her face, is thinking along the same lines as he is. Her eyes narrow slightly and the fingers of her right hand twitch against the couch. Sherlock exhales slowly. She has a gun tucked into the cushions behind her. Thank _God_ for Mary.

He turns back to John who is still staring at his sister, his hand raised half way between a gesture of welcome and warding.

"Aren't you even going to invite me in John?" Harry asks. Her voice rasps and her consonants fall slightly wrong. Her pupils are small black dots in her eyes. Sherlock realizes that she's high and that John hasn't realized that yet.

"Yes, Harry, yes. Of course. Everyone this is my sister Harriet." John says awkwardly waving one hand towards the room.

Sherlock is torn. Every ounce of him screams that he has to get Harry out of the apartment as soon as possible. But the situation-If she's removed and has no chance to do the mischief for which she has so clearly- to Sherlock- come, John may not ever forgive him for removing her. Did that matter? It had to matter. He would need John's future co-operation if he were to be an effective guard. Mary's voice pipes up behind him.

"John, darling, is this your sister?" she says with every evidence of friendliness. "Bring her to the buffet and over here to meet me! Sorry not to get up, Harry, but I'm just a bit inconvenienced, as you can see.

Sherlock recognizes Mary's gambit to redirect Harry away from her and past Sherlock. It is neatly done. Sherlock would be damned if he dropped the ball on that invite, but just as he starts forward, Harry snaps out.

"But I didn't know. No one thought to inform me that I was about to become an Aunt." Harry grates out. "Strange way to treat your sister-in-law, Mary." And with that she starts into the room, but not towards the buffet. Sherlock feels Lestrade come up just behind him

"It was bad enough not to have been invited to the wedding," Harry continues as she walks slowly into the room, her eyes shooting daggers at Mary. " I assume you were too embarrassed to invite John's drunken sister-" Mary's eyes narrow, and Sherlock knows she's drawing conclusions she doesn't like, wondering where the invitation got to. No longer concerned with looking pleasant, her hand is ready to dart behind her for the gun she knows is available. Sherlock sees her hesitate and realizes that this is unthinkable to her. It's John's sister.

"Sherlock," Lestrade breathes softly. Sherlock shakes his head minutely and hears the soft sound of folded cloth as Lestrade clears the path to his gun. The next few moments snap fast forward in Sherlock's mind and he sees what is going to happen second before it actually does.

-John's not recovering from his confusion fast enough

-Harry will be past him out of reach.

-She'll shove through Mrs. Hudson and Molly's dubious boyfriend and she'll side-step Molly before reaching Mary, at which point she would either

-hit her or

-try to stab her

Sherlock could make out what just might be a small knife outlined under her trousers at her hip. Sherlock sees all these things and calculates three separate trajectories that would allow him to intercept and restrain Harry and settles on the second as the most efficient just as a shrill voice breaks his concentration.

"How can you talk to her like that?" It is Molly, her eyes wide with indignation. She is moving towards Harry, blocking her path to Mary. "And John never says anything bad about you-" she continues and Harry's gaze snaps to her face and she snarls.

"No-" Sherlock calls out just as John lunges forward with him and Lestrade draws his gun, but Harry has already pulled free the knife, a kitchen knife for Gods sake, and swipes it in front of her in a wild arc, slicing across Molly's chest and, realising John's coming up behind her, continues the arc, twisting in the air and burying the blade into his shoulder under his collarbone. John grunts and spins with the impact toppling into Sherlock who in a moment of unforgivable, blind instinct grabs for John instead of Harry. Harry lunges towards Mary. Mary's gun is in her hand and she quickly takes aim

Time slows as

The bullet leaves the gun and

Flies through air.

Shatters through Harry's shoulder,

Harry falls heavily, pitching forward shoulder first into Mary's body with the weight of two falling men behind her.

Things suddenly snap back into real time.

Mary is slammed back into the sofa, the gun knocked from her hand and chaos erupts in the rest of the room

John screams inarticulately from the ground and tears at Harry who has fallen, moaning on top of his legs, impeding his movement.

He's bleeding profusely, blood spurting as he scrambles toward Mary who has not moved

An enraged Molly, who is really only grazed by the knife, is already kicking out hard with both feet at Harry's body trying to extricate herself and is reaching for Mary, who hasn't moved.

Sherlock is on his feet lifting Harry by the shot shoulder, gritting his teeth and viciously digging his nails into the wound and hurling her screaming backwards into the room where Lestrade quickly restrains her and pulls his phone out while grabbing something to cover the wound. John is kneeling in front of Mary, who is gasping for breath and clasping her stomach.

Molly is crying, keening, blood oozing through torn fabric from the cut on her chest, as her boyfriend awkwardly but gently pulls her back from the couch and does something stupid with a napkin.

Sherlock has eyes only for Mary, who cannot seem to draw breath and is staring at horror at John.

Mycroft swoops in from out of nowhere and, after meeting his brother's eyes for an instant, kneels in front of John while Sherlock turns to Mary.

"Sherlock-" John cries out. "Don't let anything happen to them! Stay with her!" He gasps, and seems about to pass out. Sherlock reaches towards him, torn between the two, but Mycroft has already pressed a towel magically procured against the wound and says clearly, "Hasn't hit an artery," Which might be the most wonderful thing Sherlock can ever remember him saying.

He then focuses on Mary, easing her back against the couch arm, bringing her legs up. Almost subconsciously, he's gathering and sorting information about her potential injuries, how they might affect her pregnancy, and what needs to be done next.

Her eyes are riveted on John even as she finally draws a full breath and moans in pain. Sherlock's hands are on her abdomen and he can feel a sudden rippling of muscle.

"Sherlock," she gasps. "It hurts so much. I think, I think. God, hospital!" Sherlock reaches up and cradles her face with one hand immeasurably relieved to hear her speaking, breathing.

Mrs. Hudson has somehow removed everyone else from the room, pushing them out through the foyer and into the street and urging them hysterically to clear the way for the paramedics who are already rushing into the room with stretchers.

Harry is restrained and removed on a gurney. John is loaded onto another and two paramedics converge on Mary.

"John!" she shouts, reaching as he's wheeled out. Suddenly Mycroft is crowding next to Sherlock.

"Mary, it's not serious, it only looks bad. He'll be right as rain, I swear it," he says quickly and calmly. She stares at him, trusts him. Then arches upwards as a contraction hits. "I'll stay with him the whole time," Mycroft says and leaves with John's gurney.

Sherlock circles around he the arm of the couch behind Mary's head, cradling her face in his hands while the paramedics press and probe her, getting the story from Lestrade and ascertaining her condition.

"Mary, you're going into labour. Don't panic. You are going to have two children and no complications aside form a grievously unorthodox induction." Sherlock says, forcing his voice down into its lowest register, striving to project calm even though his heart pounds heavily.

Mary is starting to sweat and hyperventilate. "Sherlock-It's wrong-It's all wrong-John... _John_." She dissolves into tears, sobbing probably being too difficult given her contractions. Sherlock listens to the paramedics who are just pulling a portable ultrasound away and finishing with their physical exam.

"She's dilating. We need to hurry." One addresses Sherlock as if he's John, as if he can make decisions on her behalf. And he realises that he can-that he will.

"She's two weeks from her scheduled delivery day, both foetuses show totally normal development as of last check up three weeks ago, though her doctor was worried about her blood pressure."

One of the paramedics looked at him closely as they lifted Mary onto a gurney.

"You a doctor?" she asked. Sherlock pauses, reviewing what response would elicit the most co-operation.

"Yes," he answers. "and a friend," he adds. The paramedic nods and no one asks him any questions as he climbs into the ambulance.

"Bart's," he says, and no one argues. Mary is gasping, grasping his hand, moaning in pain. Sherlock squeezes her hand and smoothes her hair and bites his lower lip and tells her she is doing well.

"I know, John-I'll be fine. Sherlock's doing a great job." She grinds out between shouts. Sherlock feels his heart freeze.

"What? Mary, who am I?" he asks, his voice suddenly tense.

"John-John. We'll be fine, John," she says and her eyes roll and flutter.

All of a sudden, several things snap into place in Sherlock's mind. Abnormally igh blood pressure, swollen legs and feet and now delirium.

"Magnesium!" he says urgently. "She's got preeclampsia." Just then the heart rate monitor alarm went off. Her blood pressure is skyrocketing. The paramedic who had asked Sherlock if he was a doctor gives him a quick look and says "We're almost there, the attending can administer any needed-" she finds herself grasped by the shoulders and pulled across Mary's abdomen, Sherlock's fury-contorted face an inch away from hers.

"Follow my orders precisely or you will spend the rest of your youth in jail for negligence, if I let you live that long.

"Magnesium sulphate 4 g as 20% solution intravenously at rate of 1g a minute, followed immediately by magnesium sulphate 5 g as a 50% solution. Do it now!" he hisses, shaking her twice, hard. The other paramedic has already loaded the IV bag by the time he lets go of the girl. She immediately attached it to the needle they've already placed. Minutes pass. Mary's breathing is rapid and her hand convulses in Sherlock's

Her eyes flicker open.

"Sherlock?" she gasps. "Where's John?"

"Mary? Listen. John is hurt. He'll be ok. You need to listen to me, to hear my voice. Look at me, Mary, focus on my voice."

"Hurt? Ok?"

"He'll be fine. I swear to you he will be fine. Focus on me, I need your help or you will not be fine. Your children will not be fine. Focus on my voice. Inhale." Mary draws a gasping breath, her eyes locked with Sherlock's. She isn't seizing, he repeats to himself over and over again.

"Exhale." Mary exhales and the van lurches into the emergency entrance to Bart's. "No!" Sherlock says sharply as she looks away from him at the paramedics preparing to unload her. "Look at me Mary! Inhale. Exhale. Short breaths. Inhale. Exhale." He presses her hand to his chest, setting the rhythm for her and mindlessly she mimics him until another contraction shakes her. They are rushing through familiar hallways, Mary's eyes locked on Sherlock who runs next to the paramedics blindly.

They enter a delivery room and Mary is transferred gently and competently to a bed.

"Magnesium," a female voice says behind Sherlock.

"Preeclampsia," Sherlock says, not taking his eyes off Mary's.

"I was worried about that." The voice belongs to the attending physician, presumably Mary's doctor.

"I heard about what happened," the doctor continues. "Thank god she's so far along. You'll stay?"

Sherlock nods emphatically, never taking his eyes off Mary. There is movement at Mary's feet and her feet and legs are elevated. Orderlies cover her in sheets and remove her clothing below her waist.

"Ok Mary," the doctor says in a warm, calm voice. "You just follow his instructions. He'll lead you through this," she finishes, looking to Sherlock to make sure she is right. He thinks about the volumes of information he had studied about childbirth over the past few weeks and nods. "You're dilating nicely, Mary, coming right along," she continues. "No worries, darling."

"Mary," Sherlock said. "Keep breathing. Keep the rhythm."

"Sherlock, I'm scared!" she wails between breaths.

He comes around behind her back and runs his hands over her shoulders, gently kneading them, keeping eye contact with her from above.

"Don't be scared, Mary," he rumbles. "Breathe. Breathe." He presses her hand to his chest and sets her a rhythm again, and again she follows him. He presses his cheek against her head, feels the softness of her hair, the moistness of her sweat smells the pungent aroma of her fear and stress.

He smoothes her hair back wondering what else he can do to alleviate her stress. A nurse presses a cool cloth against her forehead and Sherlock covers it with his hand and gently wipes down her face and neck. She's doing well, all things considered. No sign of a seizure.

"Big contraction coming up, " the doctor says. "Get ready and bear down." Sherlock reaches down and feels the rhythmic cramps rippling through Mary's body and times his orders according.

"Breathe, Mary. In, out, and _down_."

Mary bears down with a scream and grips his arm, her nails digging deeply into his flesh, and he doesn't feel it.

"Crowning," the doctor says softly.

Sherlock keeps the rhythm for Mary and when the next contraction comes she is ready and pushes for all she is worth, crying out hoarsely. There is a flurry of movement below the sheets and a thin squall.

"Baby girl, Mary! We're almost there! Now the way's clear you should have an easier time."

Mary smiles and laughs as the squalling continues and Sherlock presses her hand harder against his chest, his own elation deferred.

"Good, Mary, keep breathing, short breaths." In the back of his mind Sherlock realises he is getting dizzy from breathing with Mary. He takes a long deep breath and she keeps her rhythm herself, probably already feeling some relief.

An interminable time later, the doctor speaks up.

"All right Mary, last one. Last one! I know you're tired, but get ready to bear down, darling," she urges.

Mary looks into Sherlock's eyes and readies herself. He holds himself steady; giving her something to push against, ready to be used as she needs. She smiles up at him until the internal rhythm catches her in its inexorable grip and she spasms in one last exhausted push and scream.

Another flurry of motion below, then hushed orders. Mary lays back gasping, her belly deflated, and she and Sherlock listen intently for a second squall. More murmuring and Sherlock struggles mightily not break his lock on Mary's gaze to see what is going on. Seconds tick by and Mary's pupils dilate and her face pales.

"Mary, It'll be fine. Don't worry, don't think, just breathe," he says but his own voice is shaking with terror. There is more murmuring and a sucking noise and suddenly a second squall, weaker than the first, rises up from behind the sheets and the doctor pops her beaming head up over Mary's legs.

"Two strong little girls, Mary!" she almost shouts.

Mary lets out a sob-scream and starts crying as hard as her battered body allows. Sherlock's vision swims and he realises that he has succeeded in hyperventilating.

He feels hands support his elbows and allows himself to be guided to sit in a chair next to Mary's bed, which he bends over, resting his head on the sweat soaked mattress near Mary's hand. After a moment he feels her fingers twine into his hair.

"Sherlock," she says weakly and holds his head down when he tries to raise it. "Just breathe."

He takes her advice, heartened by the smile in her tired voice.

"Doctor," she gasps, "Where are my daughters?" Her voice is so tired, and more desperate than triumphant.

Sherlock hears the doctor and a nurse approach the opposite side of the bed and from the tension in Mary's hand, he can tell that they are presenting her with her children.

Sherlock wants to look, but he can't seem to lift his head. He realises that tears are pouring from his eyes and he quickly covers his face with his hands, wiping them away and firmly getting a grip on himself.

"My god, they are beautiful," Mary breathes. Then, "Where is my husband?" There is a moment of silence and Sherlock snaps his head up to observe the doctor's reaction to that question. To his infinite relief, the doctor smiles unreservedly.

"He's three rooms down, stitched up and fine. No, Mary, just give yourself a moment-" She pushes Mary down as she reaches for her daughters and simultaneously tries to get up. "You need to deliver the afterbirth."

"I need to see him!" Mary says desperately. "Please, I need to see him." Tears of weakness roll down her face. "Please."

"Soon, darling," her doctor says, but Sherlock is already on his feet. He reels for a moment then steadies, tearing his eyes away from the twin bundles in arms of the orderlies to looks at Mary.

"You-" he says, and is embarrassed to find his voice shaking. "Hold tight. Be right back." He makes his way towards the hall brushing off an orderly who tries to intercept him.

As soon as he gets outside the door, he leans against the frame and sucks cool air into his body. The worst crash after the best high of his life is no comparison to how he felt now-almost orgiastic relief floods through him, and he needs a minute to just breath.

He gets ten seconds before he hears John's voice bellowing from down the hall. He smiles slightly and makes his way toward the sound as quickly as he can.

He arrives at the room and flings the door open, stopping John in mid-rant, and possibly saving the attending physician's life.

Mycroft takes one quick look at Sherlock and rolls his eyes. Sherlock takes in John's wild expression and the god-awful stitch job and realises John hasn't let the doctor touch him without a fight. He's had probably been screaming for Mary the whole time.

John stares at Sherlock's haggard face and his complexion pales, afraid to ask and afraid not to ask. Sherlock stares back at him for a minute, taking in his blood covered torso and shakes his head slowly, wondering how many times he'll be able to see John covered in his own blood and not scream. Then, recognizing blooming panic in John's face, he shakes his head harder.

"No, no, idiot, she's fine, they're beautiful. Get your ass out of bed, get the blood off your chest and get down there. She needs you," Sherlock says, rounding swiftly on the attending who, instead of bickering, backs out of the door. John is out of bed, struggling to drag the IV cart around to the room's sink and Mycroft hands him a wet towel with which he hastily cleans most of his blood off his chest. As he struggles into a hospital gown to hide the horrible looking wound, Sherlock gives him the necessary information.

"Hard labour, two girls, both healthy, I stayed with her. She's fine, they're fine, so everything's fine, John. Three doors down on you left-be careful with the IV needle!" He babbles, and then John is sprinting out the door and down the hallway.

Sherlock finds himself unable to stand for the second time that day. He sways, reaching out. Someone guides him over to a chair and sits him down just before he collapses.

He leans his head back against the wall and sighs, his mind absolutely reeling. A glass of water is pressed into his hand and he drinks greedily. It is refilled and reappears in his hand and again he downs it almost in one gulp.

"All right now?" Sherlock recognises Mycroft's voice.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" he asks unconvincingly. "Why are you still doing here?"

"I feel as though I can leave at this juncture."

"Yes." He hears Mycroft step towards the door. Something clinks in his brain. Without opening his eyes, he says, "Mycroft, he sent a loaded weapon into that house, and we had no idea."

"Yes," Mycroft admits after a pause. "When everyone is recovered we will meet and discuss future plans. Rest assured, this will not be allowed to happen again. This building is secure."

Sherlock slits his eyes open at Mycroft's implacable tone, and his brother snorts.

"I feel as though I owe John Watson a debt of gratitude," he states. "I intend to fulfil the obligation." He turned on his heal and exits the room.

Sherlock closes his eyes and lets himself drift. At some point, someone extricates him from the room and he sits outside in the hallway, unaware of anything except the floating sensation he is experiencing.

At the back of his mind, he is struggling to organise his thoughts, to catalogue his experiences and make some sense of everything, but it is too much.

He realizes he is uncharacteristically surging with emotion, and, try as he might, he can't seem to clamp down on it.

He must have fallen asleep because he awakes with a start to visions of Mary lying in a pool of blood, pale and lifeless. Someone is speaking his name, the volume increasing as he rises to consciousness.

Molly. She is frowning over Sherlock saying some things. She sounds worried, but that's par for the course. Sherlock sternly marshals his faculties.

"...Must have been so hard for you. Anyway, John's asking for you..." she trails off, watching him wake up. Sherlock nods and rises unsteadily to his feet. Molly knows better than to make any move to help him.

"Where?" he asks. Molly points down the hall and Sherlock turns to go, then turns back.

"Molly, you were hurt." He realises she's in a hospital robe and looks around. "Where's _he_?" he asks, a hint of outrage in his voice.

She looks down frowning and blinking.

"Not...overly fond of blood," she says miserably. Sherlock groans theatrically and the next thing she knows he is reaching for her, drawing her gently towards him and wrapping his arms around her, cradling her head gently against his shoulder and rocking her slightly.

"Molly, when will you develop better taste in men?" he murmurs, smoothing her hair with his hand as she sobs out a laugh.

"Well you're not so bad when you've been completely overwhelmed by-things," she says and pulls away after one last squeeze. She's smiling and there's some colour back in her face.

"Overwhelmed indeed," Sherlock says as he turns away squeezing her hand once more and strides down the hall.

It has grown dark outside at some point and the room is dimly illuminated by a small desk lamp in the corner as well as from the harsh light shining through the window in the door.

Sherlock's eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim light after he quietly lets himself in.

John is standing next to Mary's bed holding a bundle of blankets and downy blond hair. Mary is seemingly asleep, cradling a second bundle of blanket on her chest.

"Sherlock," John says quietly, and his voice positively drips with emotion. Abruptly, Sherlock realises he doesn't know this John. This John is a father, a husband. This John is depositing his tiny sleeping daughter oh-so-gently in a bassinet and walking over to him, grabbing both his arms with shaking hands.

"Thank you, my friend." John's words come slowly, intensely. "Thank you for delivering my children, for saving my wife, for _knowing_ and doing what had to be done." His voice shakes. "Thank you for my life."

Sherlock grips John's elbows.

"Frankly, I think Mary had rather more to do with it than I did," he says, attempting a smile. "You never give her enough credit."

John gives him a damp smile. "They told me about the preeclampsia," he says more briskly. His hands tighten and he lowers his voice. "She would have died without you in that ambulance, and you know it," he says softly.

"No need to whisper, John. I know how close it was. I was there, remember?" Mary says from the bed. "Sherlock, where have you been? Come here and see my babies!" she orders.

Sherlock glances at John as though for permission. John rolls his eyes and snorts and drags Sherlock over to Mary's bedside.

She beams up at him through eyes darkened by fatigue and strain. Sherlock finds himself thinking that he has never seen a woman look more beautiful, and he shakes his head at such ridiculous sentiment.

She carefully shifts the bundle of her child to one arm and with her other hand pushes the bed into a sitting position. She moves the swaddling blankets aside, revealing a down covered head and tiny face that so closely resembles her that Sherlock cannot believe it.

"Well-formed features," he finds himself saying. "No neonatal acne or milia-"

Mary chuckles and immediately groans as her abused muscles protest. "Don't make me laugh Sherlock, please."

"Sorry," Sherlock says reflexively, still matching up the baby's features to her mother's "Sorry," he says again, his voice rough, and it is not an apology for making her laugh. "Forgive me for not seeing-"

"We will not speak of that now, Sherlock," Mary says in a tone that brooks absolutely no argument.

"Her name is Miyah," John says from next to Sherlock, and he is again holding his other daughter in his arms. Sherlock stares down at John in absolute astonishment. John smiles, folding the blanket back from his daughter's face.

"And this, Sherlock, is your goddaughter and namesake. Meet Shirley." Sherlock can't help but stare-he feels like his cognitive functions have completely abandoned him. Though her features are exquisitely small and delicate, Shirley is a miniature of John.

Sherlock is aware of his heart hammering and his arms reaching for the child, an inarticulate murmur escaping his lips. Without hesitation, John holds his daughter out and Sherlock accepts her, feeling the warm little bundle breathing against his chest so light and so fragile.

Mary pats the bed next to her and Sherlock sinks down onto it, transferring is gaze from Miyah to Shirley and back again, eventually regarding Mary's clear, steady gaze and John's somewhat moister one.

If Sherlock had been less exhausted and overwhelmed by having done that day what he never ever expected to have to do, he would have recognised the process that he underwent in the next few seconds as a reorganisation of priorities, a realignment of his senses, a shift in his mind that abruptly made acres of space available for the tiny, beautiful offspring of his best friend. As he is not, let's say, functioning at peak performance, he experienced this change as a physical one, a softening and sharpening of his perception, a warmth spreading from his chest through his extremities.

"What was that Sherlock?" John asks, and Sherlock realises he has breathed, and in that breath he spoke a word. He stares back at John, his face reflecting the unexpected fullness in his chest.

"Love," he states, and cannot keep a smile from his face.


	4. Chapter 4

"Mycroft should be arriving any moment." Sherlock says quietly, not wishing to disturb the babies from where they rest in bassinets next Mary. "Mary, a word." Mary looks up from her place at their table and smiles because Sherlock has the Look in his eye.

"With you looking like that, this should be good."

Sherlock smirks. "Your children will be awakening from hunger in approximately fifteen minutes, judging from the last two days' feeding schedule. I think that it would be tragic to allow your first visitor since your homecoming to... discommode you in any way. When the time comes to feed your daughters..." Mary has already dissolved into laughter, imagining Mycroft's reaction to breast-feeding. John pops his head out of the kitchen.

"Sherlock, if you're suggesting inappropriate things to the mother of my children, I'll...I'll do inappropriate things to you," he growls.

Sherlock smirks, letting that one fall to the floor and crawl around a bit.

Mycroft is ten minutes late and does not deign to apologise. Sherlock lets him in and guides him to the table around which Mary, John, and their children are ranged.

Sherlock notes with pleasure that Mycroft might be the most awkward human being on the planet when confronted with infants.

Mycroft sits down without looking into the bassinets and folds his hands on the table. John offers him tea and he accepts gratefully. Mary grins at him, savouring the surprise she and John have for him and waiting for the opportune moment to let the cat out of the bag. He begins with no preamble.

"John, the following will be unpleasant for you but Sherlock has instructed me to give you an unabridged version of what is going on with your sister so far." He pauses a moment, then leans back into his chair.

"Harriet Watson was admitted to St. Bartholomew's with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. The bullet passed neatly between the clavicle and the scapula without nicking any major arteries." He pauses as John shoots Mary a look full of gratitude.

She purses her lips and looks at the table.

Sherlock realises that, hindered by her condition and her shock, she had missed her aim. Lucky for John and luckier for Harriet. He wonders idly if she'll ever tell him, assuming that it depends on what comes out of Mycroft's mouth next.

"In addition to being treated for the gunshot wound, your sister is also on a detoxification regimen for an intoxicant found in her bloodstream."

John nods, having extrapolated Harry's condition from memories of the attack.

"The drug is one with which you and Sherlock have had experience," Mycroft says, his expression forbidding them to mention exactly where they had that experience, though he must know that John has told Mary about their escapade at Baskerville. "Though it has been altered somewhat so that it causes the dissociative effects with which you are so well-acquainted without the accompanying fear stimuliand impairment of motor functions.

"Her physiology suggests a long-term, low dosage that would change her psychology adequately to at least indirectly abet her attack. Unless she always harboured such animosity towards you?" he asks and continues when John woodenly shakes his head.

"Such dosage corroborates her claims that she was unaware that she was under the influence of the drug. My people hypothesise that she had indirectly come under the influence of Moriarty through a third party and that this third party, in addition to administering the drug, also provocative stimuli to prep her carefully for her attack. It may gratify you to know, John, that as the drug leaves her system, she has become increasingly repentant for her actions and insistent that she was set up to take them. I believe that."

Mycroft winds down and there is silence in the room. Mary is holding John's hand, and he is staring fixedly at the table.

"So what you're saying, Mycroft," he eventually ground out. "Is that Moriarty-or someone-purposefully found my estranged sister and cultivated some kind of relationship with her, while drugging her, for the sole purpose of getting her to the point where she was willing to harm us."

"Essentially, yes. Whoever it was transformed her into a loaded weapon, took careful aim and fired her at you. Incidentally, it was a romantic relationship with-" Mycroft breaks off as John makes to slam his fists into the table, which motion he aborts at the last moment, throwing a broken look towards the sleeping children. He rises, and begins pacing, scrubbing his hands through his hair.

"God," he says, "I don't know whether to be furious with her or guilty as hell for bringing this down on her-"

"Neither," Sherlock breaks in. "Sit down, John, and try to retain your composure. It is only by association with me that you and yours are targets at the moment. Therefore, if there is blame to be assigned, let it be assigned to me.

"Fortunately, I can handle that blame and sublimate any guilt I may feel into useful action rather than self castigation. I urge you to follow my example."

He doesn't finish with "for your family's sake," but it is hanging there and everyone hears it. John glares daggers at him as he reseats himself. Sherlock, inured to John's displeasure, shrugs it off, turning his attention to Mycroft. "From now on we can assume that any family member or acquaintance with a reasonable degree of intimacy can be considered a potential weapon. We have badly underestimated the enemy. The question now, until we have more data, is to decide how best to protect ourselves against the threat."

John nods and Mary breaks in.

"The people who have unfettered access to this house are myself, John, Sherlock, and Mrs. Hudson. All of these are above suspicion, correct?" Mycroft nods.

"John and I wish to add yourself and Lestrade to that list. " Mycroft pauses and nods again.

"For the foreseeable future, no one other than these people will be permitted within the premises. We are building a safety room in the foyer to accommodate deliveries, though most of our mail will be redirected to the Yard for them to analyse before it reaches this house. Mrs. Hudson has been so accommodating-" she breaks off her recitation of their plan to make sure she hasn't forgotten anything so far. Sherlock and John nod at her almost in unison. She continues.

"While the children are infants, there will be little reason for them to ever leave the premises. By the time they are of an age to require a...broadening of their horizons...it is our hope that we will have broken this case and such stringent precautions will no longer be necessary. In the meantime, this house is our bunker."

Mycroft nods his assent.

"So that's that taken care of," she finishes.

John picks up. "That leaves us adults, and I generously include you, Sherlock. I, for one, refuse to inordinately alter the shape of our daily activities. Mycroft, I know you have people monitoring our movements constantly anyway, and that, coupled with our own defence capabilities will have to be sufficient. We will all vary our daily routes and schedules as much as possible and continue to live with the threat as normally as possible."

Mycroft furrows his brow and seems about to protest, but Sherlock picks up the plan, rising and pacing behind the table. John's not the only one who notices his eyes occasionally wondering to the occupants of the bassinets as he passes them.

"The Moriarty Threat is on the attack, and we are on the defence. In some lights this puts us at a great disadvantage, but entering into a siege will destroy us outright.

"John is right; we must continue to move despite the threat. We don't know what to expect from whoever is behind this but he, likewise, doesn't know what to expect from us. Despite the fact that he is acting on instructions, he's nowhere near Moriarty in terms of raw intelligence. We have already surprised him on several occasions and succeeded in surviving this latest attack. We will continue to do so."

Mycroft again nods his assent.

"However," Sherlock continues. "We choose not to simply defend. You will help me to track down Moriarty's entire filthy web and we will systematically work through it to find out which parts are still sticky.

"By process of elimination, we will weed out who is responsible for the continued threat to our family and when we do we will neutralise the threat, and you can reassign her Majesty's finest to other, less pressing jobs." He winds down and looks around.

Mary is staring at him with wide eyes and John is reading tea leaves at the bottom of his cup intently. Even Mycroft has stilled.

"Oh what?" Sherlock says, exasperated. "Is it the 'our family' bit? What else would you call this?" he gestures around the room. "How can you all, especially you, Mycroft, focus on syntax when we're talking about our immediate plans for continued survival? Focus, your myopic little minds on the bigger picture! Christ!"

"Shhh!" John hisses, but it's already too late. Miyah starts softly, but her wail climbs faster than Mary can push her chair back and Sherlock deftly scoops her out of her crib and gently deposits her into Mary's outstretched arms. She quiets momentarily but it won't last. Shirley is still sound asleep as far as Sherlock can tell and he absently strokes her cheek.

Mycroft is so thrown by his brother's reaction that Sherlock decides to press his advantage.

"On to offence. Mycroft, I'll need to access MI6's database on occasion. Can you see your way clear to-"

"Sherlock, though I am in a position of more than nominal power, I am not a deity to grant access to every piece of her majesty's intelligence network-"

"Oh dear," Mary cuts him off. "Miyah's starving. Mycroft, you don't mind, do you?" She asks sweetly, already opening her robe and tugging at the hem of her camisole.

"What?" Mycroft startles, and Sherlock is positively giddy to see a flush rise above his collar as he scrambles for purchase, "No, not at-Miyah?"

It's Birthday and Christmas together for Sherlock. John tosses a disgusted look at him and Mary for manipulating the conversation this way, shrugs at Mycroft and does a bit of manipulating of his own.

"We named Shirley after her godfather," he says quietly. "Only fitting that we should name Miyah after hers - assuming of course that you're willing."

Christmas, Birthday and Hanukkah and maybe some Easter thrown in for good measure, Sherlock decides. Mycroft regains his composure.

"I'm honoured, John and Mary. Surprised, I'll admit, but honoured."

"That's settled then," Sherlock says shortly and sits down with a huff. "Now, I believe we were talking about actually important things before becoming so pointlessly side-tracked...Ahhhh, Shirley, not now..."

Mycroft stays for another half hour as they discuss logistics. As he moves to leave, he looks at Mary holding Miyah in her arms and smiles shortly. The little girl looks so like her mother. Sherlock walks him towards the door.

"Sherlock, I will grant you access to our databases but on one condition," Mycroft says as he exits the flat. They stand on the sidewalk next to the waiting car.

"I despise conditions. I won't agree to any. You need me to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone and you'll do whatever it takes to help me," Sherlock says, smirking.

Mycroft presses his eyes shut for a moment.

"You're right Sherlock," he says. When he opens his eyes, the smirk on his brother's face has been replaced with disbelief, which gives way quickly to alarm. Which emotion, Mycroft must admit, is more fitting to this situation than any other. "I will do anything. It's not as if his message was sent direct to your mobile. The threat to you and your family is extreme, Sherlock, but the threat to everyone else eclipses everything. I know you think you'll let the world burn to save them, but what good is living in a burning world? Set your mind to the bigger picture Sherlock. Please."

Before Sherlock can reply, Mycroft has entered his car and whisked away.

In the end, the plan is set into motion. 221 Baker Street is officially on lockdown. The next day a package comes from Mycroft's office. It contains a laptop with a retinal lock that is networked to MI6. Sherlock rubs his hands over it eagerly, bounds up the stairs, and gets to work.


	5. Chapter 5

"Mary!"

Mary tenses, spoon halfway to Miyah's mouth when she hears Sherlock shouting her name and his footsteps racing down the stairs. Heart in her mouth, she places the fussing girl in the playpen with her sister and meets him in the doorway of the room.

He runs up and grabs her, lifting her in a huge hug, his eyes wide and his smile triumphant.

"I found Moran!" he says as he puts her down.

Her eyes widen. "Called John?" she asks.

He nods and glances over her shoulder. Shirley is watching them intently over the gate of the playpen. A stray curl is hanging in front of her eyes.

"'Loc!" she says emphatically shaking her fist at him.

"Shirley, you look positively ravishing today," Sherlock answers, addressing her as an adult as always. "Blue shirts and spit up suit you so well."

Mary laughs as Shirley continues to stare at Sherlock with her wide, blue eyes.

"Mo'a'ty," Shirley intones darkly, slapping a fist to her knee. Miyah, who wasn't interested in anything except her blocks when she landed on her rump in the playpen, notices her sister and turns to look at them too.

"Close, Shirley, close. Moran. Mor-an. Like Moron, but dumber." Sherlock says. "Do you know what happens now children?" he asks, grabbing Mary and practically waltzes her over to them.

Shirley pauses, then calmly reaches out and knocks over Miyah's block house. Miyah does not protest, but continues to look expectantly at their mother and Sherlock who is nodding urgently, a smile splitting his face.

"I don't mind telling you, Sherlock, that sometimes, they creep me out," Mary says, but her face is pulled into the besotted grin that often suffuses her features when she regards her offspring. Sherlock folds himself down next to the baby gate and reaches over the playpen wall to ruffle Miyah's hair and clasp Shirley's small hand as she extends it to him.

"Precocious children are often creepy," he says matter-of-factly. "You can't imagine how Mycroft and I used to get under our parents' skin. It's something to be proud of."

"Oh I'm proud all right," she says, and means it. "God, where is my husband?" Sherlock notices an intensity that borders on desperation in her voice. She knows it's pointless to get him to explain anything is until John gets home, and she's positively aching to stop waiting and act.

Sherlock regards her for a moment, watching her look out the window of what has essentially been her prison for the past seven months.

Between helping Sherlock follow up leads on Moriarty's web and his job at the clinic, John hadn't suffered the same detention as Mary had the past few months, though they both attempted to get her out of the house whenever possible.

Sherlock, knowing her as well as he does now, appreciates how hard it has been for her, used to an active life, being stuck in such a sedentary position.

She hasn't wasted the time, of course. She has got herself back into peak physical condition and her "wifely errands" and John affectionately calls them consist of her packing up her armoury and spending hours at a government shooting range Mycroft thoughtfully allowed her access to. Still, inactivity grates on Mary and though she didn't begrudge her daughters one bit, she struggles with it every day.

"It's worth it, you know," he says quietly standing and coming close to her. "There was no other way. John has tried to make it was easy as-"

"Not just John, Sherlock, though he is the most fantastic father." She interrupts, turning to him clasping his hand and squeezing. "You too. When I met you I never figured you for a-" she stopped, at a loss for words. Sherlock cocks an eyebrow at her.

"For a what? Au pair? Nanny? Babysitter?" he asks trying each word on for size. They all fit unnervingly well of late. Mary smiles.

"For a patient and affectionate mentor to my children. Now, where in hell is John?" Impatience makes her voice sharp. She looks around for her phone, itching to pull up the app that would show her the telemetry of John's phone, but stops, abruptly sitting down. Sherlock smiles. They are both so good about giving each other space. He has no such compunction.

"Coming right around the corner by the look of it," he says, palming the phone back into his pocket.

Seconds later, John bursts through the door and his previously quiescent children erupt into excited squeals. He rushes straight over to them, shooting a kiss towards his wife and pummelling Sherlock's arm before he reaches over the baby gate and sweeps both up into his arms.

"So, my pets, Uncle Sherlock has found a nasty beastie in the woods, has he?" he says, as he smiles back at their smiling faces.

"Mo'an" Miyah says direly, screwing her face up. John's eyebrows recede nearly to his hairline and stutters.

"I don't mind telling you, Mary, that sometimes-" Sherlock sweeps in and poaches Shirley from John's grasp.

"Late to the conversation John. Your lovely wife and I have already expounded on the creepiness of small, precocious girls. Let's get started shall we?" And with that he plunks down at the table with Shirley on his knee.

John deposits Miyah into Mary's waiting arms and she sits down across from Sherlock.

"Well, Sherlock, don't keep us in suspense," John says, moving to the kitchen to start the kettle. "All you texted me was 'Moran.' Where is this utter, utter bastard hiding himself?

Sherlock smiles and bounces his knee, making Shirley giggle.

"He's three blocks from here in an attic flat at the corner of Changford and Melcombe."

Utter silence.

"Shirley, Miyah, observe. This is one of four ways to render your parents speechless. If you're very good, I'll show you the other three, probably all within the confines of this conversation," Sherlock continues, relishing the stunned expressions on their faces.

The kettle chooses that moment to start screaming, a noise Miyah begins, immediately, to emulate. John leaps for the kettle.

"On the other hand, Miyah, if you're very bad, I'll perform and autopsy on your teddy bear!" Sherlock shouts over the fracas. The kettle stops and so, abruptly, does Miyah.

"How long Sherlock?" Mary says quietly. "How long has he been so close to us?"

Sherlock's grin is positively feral. "Wrong question, Mary," he says.

She snorts, rapidly losing patience with Sherlock's theatrics.

"The correct question is whom do I mean by 'he?' Sebastian Moran," he continues, dramatically deepening his voice, "the Ruthless ex-military people- and tiger-hunting paedophile who, apparently, was Moriarty's right hand man for a year before he died. He was the one responsible for carrying out Moriarty's plans in the past and he has continued to do so, with varying degrees of success, posthumously."

"He's been at it for ages, I think even while I was picking apart the web to find your would-be assassins. Seems like this whole 'Did you miss me' bit is the last thing besides us on his to do list. He is about to put the finishing touches on Moriarty's legacy. If we can get him to talk, this whole thing-everything from whatever he's planning with us to whatever he's planning for London-it'll all be over."

"Why are you smiling Sherlock?" John asks uneasily. The particular smile on Sherlock's face never bodes well for anyone and usually means that he will have 80% more bruises upon his person by the end of the next 48 hours.

"Because we have much better insight into Moran than you realise and he has not been as clever as his predecessor. I'm smiling in relief because it's him and not Moriarty.

"Indeed, he is inferior in almost every way. He's been tying up loose ends, fulfilling grudges. He's mopping up and treating it like a chore, not exhibiting any of the pleasure or genius of his employer.

"Even his attempt with Harry was a misfire. I'm willing to bet my violin that he hadn't intended for her to attack until after Miyah and Shirley were born, but she jumped the gun somehow.

"The only question is why. Moriarty's dead, so why is he still in this game? John, that's my question for you. Once we understand Moran's motivations, we can begin to understand how he'll come at us."

John shook his head, confused.

"Why do you think I would be able to give you any insight into what motivates a tiger- and people-killing paedophile?" John asks.

Mary narrows her eyes at Sherlock. "Sherlock," She says, and in her voice is a warning that goes by blithely ignored.

"Think, John. Think. Moriarty gave him control of everything. Why? Why was Moran so trusted? Why is Moran continuing this? He could take Moriarty's assets and retire to hunt out the rest of the wild tiger population!

"There is no logical reason for his continued involvement. So it must come down to sentiment of some kind. Apparently he was more than just an employee but how much more?

"I may be utterly unmatched in the science of deduction but you have always provided me the necessary information pertaining to matters of the-of sentiment. Help me solve this, John."

There is a long silence.

"I think it's actually quite simple, Sherlock," John says finally. "At least it is if you really think our motives are similar. When you... died. What do you think happened after you were...gone?"

"I don't see why it matters what happened," Sherlock says and startles at Mary's outraged snarl.

"Not-not that it doesn't matter to me, John," he amends quickly throwing up his hands in defence. Just that it I don't see the relevance to my question."

"Sherlock, you said you wanted to understand why Moran is still in the game, and you are convinced I can tell you why, so let me try. When you died, you left me nothing. It's pretty clear that Moriarty left Moran a list. What do you think I'd do with a list you left me?"

"Obviously, you'd perform my last requests." Sherlock says promptly.

"And why is that obvious?" Mary asks.

"John always does what I tell him-" Sherlock is curt, wary.

"And why do you think that is, Sherlock?" John demands

"I have never pretended to understand why you tolerate me, John," Sherlock says, suddenly uncomfortable.

"You're hedging, Sherlock," Mary cuts in. "You're seeing without observing."

"If you want to know why Moran is doing this, you have to figure out why I would do it," John says. "After all these years it has to be obvious to you."

Sherlock is unconsciously pulling Shirley closer to him, seeking some comfort or haven. She snuggles against his shoulder, watching her father with wide eyes.

"You need my approval," Sherlock begins, his brow beetling as even he realises how conceited that sounds.

John nods as though he's coaching Miyah through sounding out a polysyllabic word.

"John," Sherlock says after a pause. "I've never really known why. I've always been grateful..." His voice is lowers with that unwilling admission.

"Mary, you try. It seems I'm not getting anywhere here," John says in disgust and starts pacing.

"John, love, he's trying, but he's so used to lying to himself it's hard for him. Have some patience. You'll probably just have to tell him."

John comes to rest behind a chair, and grips the back of it with both hands. "Sherlock, the reason why I would sort out your list is the same reason I follow you around crime scenes, feed you tea and toast when you're starving yourself and put up with your impossible-you-ness. Isn't it obvious?"

"No, it's not bloody obvious," Sherlock says intensely. John knows he'd be shouting but for the child in his arms. "If it were obvious I wouldn't be ASKING you."

Mary rises and comes around to where John is standing and faces Sherlock with him. The man is actually trembling, and this isn't about Moran anymore.

"Sherlock, John loves you," she says quietly, removing the need for either of them to continue with this torturous conversation. She strokes her husband's back as he breathes out a sudden sigh.

Sherlock scoffs.

"Do you think I'm stupid, Mary? Obviously John loves me. He's more of a brother to me than Mycroft-more than..."

John's jerks his head up and he digs his fingernails into the back of his chair, grinding his teeth against the anger and old frustration welling up inside him.

"Sherlock, you idiot." Mary says gently. "He LOVES you. He has loved you since-well since far before I knew him."

Sherlock stills completely, eyes widening. John breathes raggedly and fixes his eyes on the table. He is trembling slightly and Mary's cool hand resting on his back feels like a lifeline.

"But. He. You. You two-Married? He loves you, Mary. It was obvious even to me... I recognised it the instant I saw him in that restaurant about to propose to you," Sherlock stammers.

John suddenly sighs, relaxing, pulling out the seat he'd been throttling and sitting down heavily. He looks up at Mary with an unreadable expression and she lowers Miyah into his arms. Miyah coos at him and bats at his nose, and some of the tension in the room abates.

Mary steps up behind him and slips her arm over John's shoulder, laying her hand flat on his chest, watching Sherlock watch her hand rest over his heart.

"John loves me just as much. You're the head, Sherlock. You are cleverer than ten men. John's the heart. He has an equal capacity for love, which you should know by now.

"And if Moran loved Jim Moriarty as much as John loves you, we have as much or more to fear from him as we did from Moriarty," she finishes, her hand clenching slightly, scrunching into John's jumper, her eyes wide with anxiety.

There is a long silence. Sherlock is stroking Shirley's hair absently, his eyes unfocused staring into middle distance, flickering as he rummages for evidence of Mary's words in the halls and rooms of his mind palace.

After considerable time, his expression alters. His brow unfurrows, his lips part slightly and he inhales sharply. When he raises his widened eyes it is like watching the sun come blazing up over a desert horizon. Mary can almost feel heat radiating off of him.

John meets his gaze and holds it, trying to convey volumes of information with his eyes-things he's not ready to say yet and that Sherlock isn't ready to hear. And because it's Sherlock, it works, and Sherlock's eyes shine brighter.

"Boys, this is beautiful, really," Mary says, her own voice shaking, hating herself for shattering this moment. "The timing's atrocious, but that's to be expected of you two. We will hash this wonderful epiphany out later. But right now, we have a murderous fuckhead three blocks away probably aiming his Cheytac through the kitchen window right now, and I find myself positively itching to kill him and finish this whole sorry tale so we can get on with our lives."

John smiles at Sherlock and pulls Mary down so that they're cheek to cheek and turns his head and actually bites her neck.

"Inappropriate, I know," he says as she hisses, batting at him, but he holds her firm. "It's just that it is so hot when you get all hard and assassin-y. Isn't it, Sherlock?" he asks. Sherlock gawks for a moment before leaning back in his chair with half hooded eyes.

"Captain Watson, I believe you are trying to put me in a compromising position." He drawls, and his eye drift to Mary, who's clearly struggling between laughter and violence. She finally settles for both, whacking the back of John's head lightly while pulling away and laughing.

"I'll get Mrs. Hudson to watch the children," she says slowly. "Sherlock, call Mycroft. Tell him to get his goons over here to secure the house. John, come get changed. We are going hunting."

"Mary, we can't just go running into an apartment building shooting up the place. Someone might get hurt."

Sherlock is already moving, depositing Shirley in her playpen and plucking Miyah off John's lap.

"John, don't be so obtuse. Mary said 'hunting.' Not 'murdering.' _She_ would differentiate. We need more data." He looks at the children who, for once, do not seem about to start protesting being left to their own devices for a bit. He smiles.

"Fascinating. I really do think they understand, at least on some level, what's important." He says softly to Mary, taking her hand in his as she comes up next to him. "_Thank you_." He adds, trying to convey through touch and tone what there is no time to say. She returns the squeeze and turns to John who is observing them with a smile on his face.


	6. Chapter 6

It takes a day to organise even though Mary had been all for storming the fort. She almost punched John when he insisted on contacting Mycroft to access CCTV recordings of the area.

Mycroft was very helpful. Once they told him where Moran was, he had his people gather a month's worth of recording of the surrounding area. Once Sherlock identified Moran, Mycroft ran the recording through software that algorithmically isolated his pattern and tracked his entrance and exit times. It took five hours before a fairly regular daily pattern emerged.

"So sloppy," Sherlock muttered. "And boring. An actual schedule. Like clockwork. John, even you wouldn't be so stupid."

John snorted and punched him in the arm. Mary smirked.

It was Mycroft's opinion that Moran did not know he had been discovered. Three times over the past months, he had entered the apartment in the company of women, each time a different one. The Yard confirmed that two were known prostitutes. The identity of the third could not be ascertained.

Sherlock took a few minutes to wander over to a nearby overpass and slip a request wrapped in 50 quid to a ratty looking old woman. Within an hour, there was a knock on the door and a note was found slipped through the mail slot.

Both prostitutes remembered Moran. They described an almost empty flat with several odd looking cases in one corner and little else except a mattress and a table. He had been rough. One had needed minor surgery after.

Sherlock procured blueprints on the building on his laptop. There was a main elevator and fire stairs in the front of the building and a set of service stairs and an elevator in the rear. Moran rarely used the service stairs, preferring to take the main elevator.

The plan was to use the service entrance and stairs, break into the apartment, acquire information about Moran and his cohorts, and leave without their presence being noticed. Moran couldn't know he'd been discovered for fear that he'd go underground and this whole thing will drag on further.

Judging from his schedule, Sherlock calculated that there was a 94.5% chance that Moran would be absent from his apartment for some time between the hours of 9 and 11 PM, though no one could tell exactly where he would go. They contacted Lestrade and he agreed to tail Moran and give them as much warning as possible when he headed back for home.

The next night, Mary is leading them quickly down the alley behind the apartment building where Moran is living. Sherlock is behind her with John bringing up the rear.

It is dark and there is just enough of a fine drizzle to create halos around the safety lights attached the backs of the buildings that line the alley. They approach the service entrance to the building and Sherlock does things to the lock on the door. Soon they are inside, waiting in the shadow under the metal stairwell.

Sherlock's phone buzzes in his pocket.

Moran out front door.-MH

Sherlock nods and they ascend the stairs. At the top, Sherlock and John flank the door to the hallway outside Moran's back door. Sherlock he applies himself to the task of picking the lock, and in a few seconds is rewarded by a quiet snick. The door hinges squeal as they open. John flows around the doorframe and into the small hallway. The rear door to Moran's apartment is directly in front of them. Light from the stairwell illuminates it through the window in the stairwell door.

They pause a moment. Surveillance says there's no one in the flat, but Moran is a dangerous man. There could be other harmful things behind the door.

Mary first puts her ear to the door then reaches into her pocket and removes a small bottle, which she hands to Sherlock. He opens it and there is a brush attached to the lid. After a sniff he smiles appreciatively and brushes the liquid well into the hinges of the door.

Mary pulls out a small wand-looking piece of metal. Sherlock quirks his eyebrow and she smiles. It telescopes into a three-foot long flat rod which she gingerly pushes under the 1/8 inch gap under the door at the corner. It slides in two inches than stops. Frowning, Mary continues her probe sliding the rod to the right. Six inches to the right, it slides in further, and then stops. The material it is taping into on the other side of the door sounds like plastic. Mary's frown deepens. She slides the rod up the side of the door between door and jamb, and there seems to be no impediment above a foot high.

They huddle together, faces almost touching.

"Cases." Sherlock hisses. The prostitute had mentioned odd cases.

"Push open slowly. Slide the cases back into place, go out front entry after." John whispers.

Mary and Sherlock nod.

The lock snicks and he pushes the door handle down and pushes the door open with agonising slowness, moving the cases aside. They are heavy. When the door is open sufficiently too allow him access, he slips in sideways. John follows and Mary brings up the rear, quickly closing the door behind them. Sherlock takes another step inside and something crunches ever so quietly beneath his feet. He freezes.

John takes a penlight from his pocket and flicks on the red light. Mary groans at what she sees.

Thick powdery chalk covers the floor. It's everywhere, put there on purpose. The boxes displaced it when they slid, and their footprints are startlingly visible.

"So much for sneaking out unnoticed." Sherlock says sourly, clearly now that it doesn't matter since he will know someone was here.

John crunches his eyes shut in frustration. "He knew we were coming," he grates out.

"He thought someone might come," Sherlock corrects. The distinction is important enough that John doesn't punch him.

"Well, we're here now," Mary says reasonably. "Let's see what we can find."

The attic flat is basically one large room with a small bathroom attached. There is a kitchenette with two cabinets, a cook top and a card table with one chair on the same wall as the door through which they'd come. Across the room, which John guesses is about 20'x16', there is a bank of windows overlooking the busy street below. In front of the windows is a thin double mattress covered by a sheet and a sleeping bag. No pillow.

On the card table, Sherlock finds a moleskin notebook, much used. He flips it open and began taking pictures of every page with his phone. He pauses, reads one page twice, and slides the whole notebook into his pocket.

John checks out the papers and clutter surrounding the mattress. There is a manila folder half obscured the sleeping bag. Holding the flashlight in his mouth, he slides the contents of the folder out. Glossy photographs. His heart skips and races. The pictures are high definition, but certainly taken from a long distance away.

They are all of his children.

In one, Mary is bathing Miyah in the kitchen sink. The sheer curtain doesn't really provide all that much privacy. He flips through them, and they're more the same-Sometimes Shirley, sometimes Miyah, sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in their bedroom where they often leave the curtains open.

He notices with a sickening feeling how often the pictures have been handled-there are fingerprints all over them. This, coupled with the placement of the folder on the bed leads him to conclusions that nauseate him. He starts shaking.

The last picture in the series is of Sherlock sleeping in his room, curled up in a loose crescent, head resting on his arm his hair partially covering his face, clad only in dark pants. The picture is slightly grainy due to the telephoto zoom, but it is detailed enough.

"Not my best boxers, but a fairly nice picture if you like high contrast photography. I have such a ridiculously pale complexion." Sherlock says behind his shoulder and John jumps. Sherlock is smiling.

"Jesus, Sherlock-" John hissed. He is shaking with anger. Sherlock just winked at him and handed him his camera phone.

"Take pictures of the pictures so we can figure out where his perch is. And don't forget. Bullet proof windows."

John shakes his head mutely and hands the whole folder to Sherlock.

Sherlock glances at the next photo and inhales sharply, his eyes narrowing in and his jaw clenching in rage as he shuffles quickly through the rest.

Mary returns from her inspection of the cases and her perusal of the kitchen.

"Just his arsenal," she mutters. "Nothing unexpected. Find anything more interesting?" she asks. Sherlock hands her the pictures.

"Found them on the mattress." John mutters. He doesn't look at her face but he feels the darkness seem to harden around her.

Sherlock removes the photos from her shaking hands and returns them to the manila folder, which he puts in Mary's satchel.

"At the very least we have fingerprints," he says. "Enough to get him thrown away for something. We will _not_ be leaving those here."

John nods curtly and looks at the rest of the paper around the bed. Receipts for takeout and the like. Nothing interesting since they could trace his movements on CCTV anyway.

"Out the back," Sherlock says. "It's useless to try to cover up our presence at this juncture, but we can avoid being seen by anyone else." He turns to the door but the handle doesn't move. Sherlock grunts in annoyance as he realises the door needs a key to open from the inside as well. He goes to work on it just as his phone vibrates.

John reaches into Sherlock's pocket, takes it out, and reads the text.

_Leave immediately.-MH_

He shows Sherlock who is still arguing with the lock. Finally, it opens. And they make their way across the hall. The stairwell door just closes and locks behind them when the phone vibrates again.

_Front stairs!_ It's from Lestrade.

They hear the service door at the bottom of the stairs open and shut and someone begins ascending the stairs. Going back is impossible-they won't have enough time to open both doors and leave through the front of Moran's apartment.

They run quietly down to the next level and Mary gets to work on the hinges of the door. Steps echo upwards from two floors below them.

John catches his Sherlock's eye as he whips out his lock pick set and begins breaking into the stairwell door as Mary quickly oils the hinges. John gestures to the gun in his hand. Three against one? Let's end this now.

Sherlock shakes his head frantically, his eyes wide, and the lock snicks. Moran is on the stairs half a flight below them.

They are through the door and it shuts quietly just as Moran turns the corner of the stairs and ascends to the landing. They hold their positions on either side of the door, well away from the window, hidden in the shadows in the service hallway. Moran's shadow passed across the window. The footsteps halt. He backs up and the shadow of his head darkens the wall across from them as he peers into the hallway through the glass. The door handle jiggles, but it locked as it closed.

The shadow slides away and the steps began their final ascent. John's coat pocket vibrates.

Group text from Sherlock to everyone:

_Moran must remain alive at ALL costs! Exodus.-SH_

Mary gasps. Exodus is code to clear their house. John grabs her arm and holds her in a bruising grip as she goes for the door. She glares at him, but stays still.

The steps had reached the top of the stairs. They ready themselves.

They have only the space of time between when the stairwell door closes behind Moran to when he pushes open the door to his flat before he realises that someone has been there.

He can throw together the sniper rifle Mary found in twenty seconds. Rooftop access gave him full view of the alley and the street. Sherlock has calculated that he would not chase them down the stairs and take chances on foot. Not when he could hunt them from above.

Approximately forty seconds to descend four flights of stairs and find cover outside in the alley. There is a covered dumpster shelter half a block to their right along the alley. This is the point they picked should the need arise. Forty seconds, assuming he doesn't have an accomplice somewhere close waiting for just this opportunity.

Sherlock hears John's slow, steady intake of breath, then Mary's as they steady themselves.

The upstairs door shuts with a bang and half a second later, they are flying down the stairs, John and Mary in the lead, Sherlock a step behind them.

They burst into the alleyway below and sprint for the shelter.

John is sure he can feel the laser bead on the back of his neck as he hurtles toward the dumpsters. Mary, ever so slightly ahead of him, is clear so far.

Sherlock shortens his stride, making sure to remain just behind John as they cannon towards the shelter.

An orange spot blooms before his eyes, painting the back of John's neck in hideous orange. It dances, and momentarily his vision tracks. He coils his muscles mid-stride and launches his body forward and upward, reaching for John to knock him into the shelter, but his aim, his primary aim, is to shield, to intercept.

"John!" Sherlock shouts at the last moment in warning. He grasps John around the waist as he leaps through the air the last few feet, and lands under John beneath the corrugated steel roof of the dumpster shelter where Mary is already crouching, just as they hear the echo of the shot and see the laser weaving in frenzied circles around the pavement not twelve inches away from where Sherlock is tucking his feet closer.

Sherlock stifles a post impact gasp of pain as he lands under and slightly behind John. He feels his shoulder impact with the ground and tear backwards under the weight of his body and John's as they slide under the shelter. As he sits up he can't fully suppress a groan of pain from escaping his lips.

There is no time yet to investigate, but John files it away for later. He wonders briefly why there are no more bullets raining down around them.

They hear the screeching of tires behind them as Mycroft's armoured limo pulls up close enough that the door opens under the roof. Sherlock throws himself inside, landing on the floor between the two banks of seats with Mary and John close behind and the car peels away down the alleyway.

For a moment all anyone does is gasp for breath.

"Fish entrails and spoilt miso," Mycroft's voice intones from, annoyingly, above them where he sits on one side of the car seat. "In case you were wondering what was causing the distinctive aromas arising from your persons.

"Wrong," gasps Sherlock, heaving himself into a seat, his left arm held stiffly down at his side. "It's Takoyaki night at Kiku. Squid entrails"

"Wrong." Mycroft counters. "The trash is from yesterday. They haven't cleaned out the kitchens yet today."

"It's always something," Sherlock mutters.

"The children, Mycroft!" Mary cries out as soon as she catches her breath.

"Fine, Mary. Exodus was executed. We're on our way to meet them at the safe house.

She exhales and crawls up on the seat a respectful distance away from Mycroft and pulls something nasty out of her hair, lowering the window enough to chuck it out. John clambers to the seat across from her and stares at her, just relishing the fact that she is breathing. And smiling.

Sherlock is staring at Mary with a smile pulling up on the corners of his lips.

Mary starts to chuckle and Sherlock starts, crazily, to laugh. Before long they are both doubled over in paroxysms of mirth. John is annoyed to be left out even as a sympathetic grin plays across his lips. He could never keep from smiling when both of them were laughing like idiots.

"Ok," he said. "I give up. What is so funny?"

Mary puts her hand in her pocket and pulls out a fistful of Cheytac .408 cartridges and lets them spill from her fingers to the car floor.

"I thought-ha! I thought, why should I make it easy for him? He was firing- oh my-he was firing blanks!" she says, trying hard to gain control over her giggling.

"God_damn_ it, woman. Brilliant," John says, laughing.

Sherlock's smile starts to wane as he observes their location and direction.

"Mycroft, where are you taking us?" he asks.

"To the safe house," his brother replies. "Obviously."

"And where is this safe house?" John asks, curious as to why Sherlock has started looking rebellious.

"Why, the safest house I could think of," Mycroft says shortly. "My house."

Sherlock groans and lets his head fall back against the back of the seat.

"I'm pretty sure what Sherlock means to say is 'Thank you, Mycroft,'" Mary comments.

Sherlock's head snaps up at the same time that Mycroft says, "Nonsense. What Sherlock means to is 'the ceilings are too tall, the wood too polished, the marble too white, the stained glass too old, the servants too intrusive, and my _God_ do I hate visiting my brother.'"

Sherlock nods decisively and flops his head back against the car seat.

John notices how stiffly he holds his left arm. It can wait, though. No blood. Probably just dislocated.

"Well, thank you all the same, Mycroft. Though I'm curious to know why Exodus was called in the first place." She looks pointedly at Sherlock.

"There may be demolition charges in the underground tunnel below the house," Sherlock says. "I don't know for sure if they are actually present, but they were mentioned in Moriarty's book. I have the whole thing photographed on my phone, but I'm glad I read that part. Mycroft, do have your people take a look." He finishes in a bored tone of voice. Mycroft is already texting.

John starts to shake again. When he met Mary's eyes, he sees she is shaking too.

Well at least he isn't the only one.


	7. Chapter 7

Mycroft's house is more of a mansion, John decides on arrival. They enter through a huge oak door that swings inward to display a butler that John thinks looks like he comes straight out of _Downton Abbey_. John hears laugher and, nodding an apology to Mycroft, he and Mary rush down the hall to see their children. Mycroft gazes tolerantly after them.

"I hope they have the decency not to sit on the furniture in their current state," he murmurs. Sherlock snorts and heads for the stairs.

"Last room on the right, brother mine,"

"I know which room is mine, Mycroft. Sandwich and tea." Sherlock says as he manages to sweep up the stairs despite his arm.

They all take their time with their ablutions. John and Mary shower together, gently cleaning and stroking, reassuring each other that all is well. They come out to find that sandwiches and tea have been left on the table in their room. A maid pokes her head in the room and informed them that their children are with Sherlock.

John is happy about that. Shirley and Miyah seem to soothe Sherlock. And if they are still with him, he wishes for their company. John cannot find it in him to begrudge Sherlock that comfort.

Mary gazes around the room as she eats, taking in the dark, shining woodwork, the marble fireplace, the plush, ornate rug and the enormous bed.

"So this is how the other half lives," she comments. John nods. "It's beautiful, but I much prefer our place," she says, and John sighs with relief.

"Me too. Sherlock too. You know, it's funny. When he decided I was going to be his flatmate, I thought it was because he couldn't afford to live in London alone. I was dead wrong. Interesting that he prefers the Baker Street ambience to this. This seems more in line with his personality. I imagine his mind palace looks like this."

Mary nods. "Think about it though," she says, "Inside, Sherlock is like this place, but he surrounds himself with comforting things. You for instance. You're like Baker Street. Warm and safe and inviting and grounded. No amount of damage done will change that. It's no wonder people like me and Sherlock are drawn to you. You're everything we're not."

John reaches for her across the small table, caressing her arm. "I doubt very much our children would agree with that assessment, Mary. You're a wonderful mother. We both have the luxury of being two people at once. Sherlock..." John lets the sentence drift.

"Did you see his face, John?" Mary asks quietly. "Did you see how he looked at you when he realised what I was saying yesterday?"

John nods, then tugs on her hands, pulling her towards him, settling her in his lap, her legs sideways across his thighs. "Mary, I will never leave you. I will choose you and choose you over and over again, no matter how many times I have to. I love you from the bottom of my heart, and you should never, not ever feel threatened in any way."

Mary hums and hugs him to her and he strokes her back and feathers kisses down her neck. The events of the day recede and everything softens as she sighs against him.

"I would never make you choose, my love," she murmurs. "No matter what, you will never have to choose. Sherlock has been a part of you since I've known you. I have come to love him myself and I know he's at least fond of me. If you find that things should progress further-well I suppose, as trite as it sounds, you have my permission."

John almost stops breathing.

"Mary, I'm positive Sherlock does not think of me in that way," he says, as good as admitting that he's had the occasional thought.

She hums noncommittally.

"But you-" he says, feeling his throat close up. Finding that he can't continue, he pulls her closer, nuzzling her neck and sliding his hands along her back, trying through his touch to tell her how much he loves and appreciates her, how grateful he is for her, to try to suffuse her with the same feeling she imparts to him.

"John, if you keep on like that you won't get the chance to pop Sherlock's shoulder back into place," she says breathlessly. John murmurs something against her chest, running his fingers along the edge of her dressing gown, sliding it off one shoulder. She sighs against him and strokes his hair, running her hands down the back of his neck, relishing how warm his skin is, kneading his shoulders lightly. Then, with an almost Herculean effort, she gently disengages from his caress, trailing her fingers across the back of his neck as she moves away from him.

"Much as it pains me to say it, he needs you and you should fix him. Then come to bed and snuggle in with me and our daughters."

John takes a deep breath.

"Don't suppose I should take the time for a cold shower-" he says, huffily, getting to his feet and adjusting himself so that at least he isn't quite as obvious.

He's wearing a pair of silk trousers, rolled up at his waist because they were a bit too long, and a matching robe. He adjusted the robe, then twitches his chin up with a smile.

"Let's tend to the wounded, then," he says, crooking his arm at her. She laughingly takes it and they stroll down the cavernous hall towards Sherlock's room.

The sound of Miyah's laughter echoes down the hall and they step forward more eagerly.

Sherlock is on his bed kneeling with the covers tented over him making him a miniature mountain. In one hand, he holds a somewhat poorly taxidermied mongoose. The mongoose is stalking over the mountain's shoulder as he narrates, and the girls sit on the floor, staring at him in rapt attention. John and Mary pause outside the door, watching.

"The mongoose is omnivorous," he explains. "It will eat insects, and plants, and birds, and other rodents," he punctuates each prey animal with a pouncing movement from the mongoose that delights the girls, who squeal softly with every pounce.

"But his favourite pastime is stalking through the grasses hunting for snakes!" Sherlock says, and out of the corner of the bedspread slinks the head of a stuffed viper.

John makes a move to intercede-the viper looks scary even to him as Sherlock weaves it through the sheets-but Mary grabs his arm. He notices that his children are not recoiling in fright, but leaning in to watch the drama of the hunt unfolding as the mongoose tracks the snake across a duvet the colour of the savannah.

"The snake is poisonous," Sherlock continues, "but the mongoose knows just...where...to...bite!" he shouts, and the mongoose leaps forward, muzzle connecting with the back of the snake's head. The girls squeal, and it's then that John notices the difference in their personalities.

Shirley's smile is positively feral, but Miyah looks towards the snake, and he thinks he sees regret burgeoning in her eyes.

It's an old soul look and he finds himself compelled to come forward and encircle his child in his arms, while Mary claps her hands with Shirley. Miyah is immediately distracted by the presence of her father, and she gurgles and points at the quaking mountain plainly relating the whole story.

Sherlock's head pops out from the covers, and his hair is everywhere. The girls coo and stretch out towards him, and he jumps from his knees to his feet on mattress only to plunk himself straight down on the edge of the bed, bouncing slightly.

His trousers are identical to John's but they fit him. He is bare-chested, and holding his left arm straight down against his side. John briefly wonders if he is manipulating the snake with his foot. John also realises Sherlock probably could not lift it enough to put a robe on and experiences a shaft of guilt for not having come sooner. Mary is marshalling the children into her arms and saying something about the jungle book to Sherlock.

"It was one of my favourite stories as a child. I had a stuffed mongoose that guarded my door at night," he is telling Mary. She smiles so gently at him and he looks down, wondering why in hell he'd told her that.

John is impressed. Mary has a way of gleaning interesting titbits of information from Sherlock that he never shares with John. Each one is like a gift, given at cost and received with gratitude.

"Now, Sherlock," Mary admonishes. "Follow your doctors orders! You need looked after!" And she sweeps out the door with her children, nudging it closed behind her.

Sherlock groans and pitches himself backwards against the mattress, immediately grunting again in pain.

"Yeah, not such a good idea, huh?" John says, his lips quirking. "Sit up and let me take a look at the shoulder that you wounded in your valiant attempt to save me from an impotent gunman."

Sherlock actually chuckles as he sits up.

"I had no idea about the blanks. Your wife is a marvel, John." Sherlock says, and John taken aback by the unabashed praise. He motions Sherlock closer to the edge of the bed and snorts.

"You never say that stuff about me, your faithful blogger," he says, prodding the muscle around the shoulder and feeling down the arm for breaks.

"You never do anything so bloody brilliant," Sherlock says, grunting in annoyance as John probed a particularly sore area.

"You're making it easier and easier for me remorselessly yank this dislocated limb of yours back into place." John says, and glares mockingly at Sherlock. "I'm going to have to, you know and the sooner the better. I ought to have come here directly-"

Sherlock shakes his head quickly. "No, that would have meant I would not have had a chance to imbibe half a bottle of wine and eight ibuprofen. I assure you, I'll be quite able to bear it." He got to his feet at John's beckoning. "Bed post or doorway?" he asks.

John smiles, relenting. "Neither. I'll use the Cunningham technique. It's much gentler. Takes longer, but we're not being chased by an axe murder at the moment. Plus, this way your pansy arse scream won't disturb the girls. How'd you do the snake by the way? You can barely move your arm."

"Foot," Sherlock says.

"Monkey toes," John says. "Come sit down here," he motions to the loveseat in front of the fire. It's just the right height for what they need to do.

Sherlock turns towards the chair and stiffens at John's sudden exclamation. Too late he remembers the scars that he's been so careful to conceal-the legacy of his time in Serbia.

"Fuck," he mutters, looking over his shoulder at John. "Don't overreact," he adds but it's too late.

"Jesus Christ, Sherlock," John breathes. "What happened to you?"

"Would you believe I fell out of a bus?" Sherlock asks.

"Not unless you told me you landed on a bed of blunt knives," John answers, approaching Sherlock and squinting slightly at the cicatrix of scars that weave under Sherlock's skin. He reaches out, and grasps the back of Sherlock's head, facing him forward and tilting his head forward to get a better look at a particularly deep cut that curves up his spine to the base of his neck.

"You realise some of these scars will need surgery," he says, gently probing the stiff tissue. "Have they given you stuff to put on them?"

"Yes," Sherlock says and sighs. "But obviously I haven't been. Even with my monkey arms, I can't reach. Don't _nag_ me, John. It's why I didn't want to tell you."

"Sherlock, I would have found out eventually. You should have told me. There are massage techniques and ointments that can greatly reduce scar tissue formation."

"I'm not worried about how it looks any more than you're worried about how yours looks," Sherlock says petulantly.

"Idiot, it's not your looks I'm concerned with. Left to it's own devices, your skin will heal so hard that it will impede your movement and cause you continuous pain, and that is unacceptable."

"And here I was thinking that you'd yell at me for getting into trouble in the first place. This is much more irritating." Sherlock sighs.

"Oh please, you're Sherlock bloody Holmes." John says, laughing, turning Sherlock around to face him. "If I got mad at you every time you got yourself caught or injured, we wouldn't be having this conversation now." He pauses. "I am angry and not a little hurt that you didn't trust me enough to doctor you up though." John scowls suddenly as he realises suddenly how deeply those feelings go.

"Well after you beat me around when I turned up, I didn't want to tell you for fear you'd feel guilty."

"Guilty? Not a chance. You deserved what you got and more and you know it. But I would have fixed you up afterwards, no matter how angry I was. I _am_ a doctor, you know," John says in exasperation.

"Well, doctor me now, John. My shoulder's killing me," Sherlock says plaintively and the part of John's brain that is fluent in Sherlockian accurately translates this into "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I do trust you implicitly, I didn't want to worry you, but I'm in agony. Please fix it.

John rolls his eyes and gestures to the chair and Sherlock sits down, happy for the proximity to the fire. He regrets the cold and the fact that John has seen his back before he had time to have the recommended surgery. He hates having to admit to himself that he should have told John sooner and this unhappiness makes him less than compliant as John arranges him on the chair to his satisfaction.

"Ok, just uncross your legs and straighten your back, Sherlock. Good. I'm going to kneel down in front of you and I want you to rest your left hand on my right shoulder. That will cut down on rotation of your humerus as we do this." Sherlock does as John asks, his long fingers resting on John's shoulder

"Now relax, Sherlock, which after half a bottle of wine and a full day should not be too difficult even for you." Sherlock sits there looking at John, and John can almost hear him mentally ordering his muscles to relax. It doesn't seem to work.

"Ok...Drop your right shoulder and try to relax your back muscles but don't slump. You can lean forward a little against my shoulder," John says after a minute. Sherlock frowns and tried to mentally force his shoulder to relax. He is only marginally successful. John sighs.

"Seriously, Sherlock, this is going to feel odd as it slips into place, but I promise it won't hurt like the last time. It will be a rather immediate relief."

Sherlock nods, but he is still unconsciously bracing for pain. John tries another tack-distraction. He's often found that if he described things in medical terms during a procedure, the patient would be so busy making sense of his explanation that they wouldn't notice what he is actually doing.

"I'm going to relieve dynamic obstruction of your dislocated shoulder using a slow massage of your trapezius and deltoids," he says, and begins the slow, gentle massage above Sherlock's shoulder. He continues. "The muscles are spasming because of the trauma and it's not allowing your rotator cuff to return to where it naturally belongs."

He feels the muscle slowly give way to his gentle manipulation. "Now we're moving onto your bicep at the mid humeral level," he continues, and realises that his voice has taken on the semi-singsong tone that reflects his inner monologue when he reads medical texts and journals. It's the same voice that inevitably makes his eyes heavy and makes it impossible not to nap. If it works on him internally it should work on Sherlock externally, he thinks.

Indeed it is working. Sherlock's right shoulder and his back are now totally relaxed. John feels the bicep muscle slowly becoming pliable and transfers his massage back to the deltoid.

"The massage has to be gentle at first, but increasing in pressure as comfort allows. The muscles must reach a certain point of relaxation before we move to overcome the static obstruction of the dislocation by shrugging your shoulders superiorly and anteriorly. We're not quite there yet-" John says, feeling a twinge of resistance in the deltoid. He transfers his hand back down to the bicep and continues the rhythm of the massage.

He notices with approval that Sherlock's eyelids are now drooping, hooding his eyes as his head dips forward slightly and he sighs quietly. His whole upper body is rocking gently to the rhythm of the massage.

Despite the discomfort, the heat of the fire and the sound of John's voice seem to be lulling him into just the right relaxed state. Now if John could just get him to shrug his shoulders without breaking the spell-Sherlock's typical shrug is very nearly the perfect mix of upwards and backwards motion needed to affect the placement of the humeral head.

"By the way, thank you for keeping an eye on Shirley and Miyah earlier," he tries, watching closely. Sure enough, Sherlock shrugs unconsciously in dismissal, and the humeral head slips smoothly back into its place. Sherlock's eyes pop open suddenly and he experimentally lifts his right hand to cover his left shoulder, now rounded again as it should be. His eyes, when they meet John's are wide with surprise.

"That was brilliant, John!" he says. John smiles and pats Sherlock's as he gets to his feet, popping his stiff knee and shaking blood back into his feet. Sherlock surges to his feet, languor forgotten, and prods his shoulder with increasing firmness before he experimentally holds his arm out from his side.

"Seriously, John. That's brilliant. It hurt for ages last time," he says in the same unabashed tone he'd used in recognition of Mary's slight of hand. John feels his face heat up and laughs shortly.

"You know you're doing that out loud," he says, smiling.

Sherlock stops in mid arm-flap and looks at John, a smile twitching on his lips. "Sorry, I'll stop."

"No, it's all right."

They stand there looking at each other for a moment, and John feels unaccountably awkward.

"You'll need an ice pack for that though," he says, breaking eye contact. "I'll go down to the kitchen and see if I can find any ice or frozen peas or something. And a sling. Shouldn't move your arm around too much for a day or so..." he ends lamely, glancing back up.

Sherlock is regarding him with disconcerting intensity. "John, you are a superb doctor." Sherlock says suddenly, definitively. "I do trust you and I should have told you about my back and let you help me as you always help me." He continues holding John's gaze.

"Sherlock, I-"

"No, let me finish. I never tell you these things because, frankly, they are very hard for me to admit to you. I don't know why. It's easier now, because of the wine and the ibuprofen and the fact that earlier, had it not been for your blessed, beautiful wife, a little orange dot on the back of your head would have meant the end of you and I would never have told you how much I love you John." He finishes with a rush, holding John's gaze and clasping his arms across his chest nervously.

As if that admission isn't enough of a shock, John notices two real, glistening tears fall from Sherlock's eyes, sliding over his cheekbones and down his face and neck.

It reminds John of how Shirley cries. She rarely sobs, but when something is wrong or she hurts, tears pour out of her imploring eyes and John feels the same compulsion to hold and comfort that he does now, but he struggles against it.

"You're not...having me on again, are you?" he asks, his head jerking nervously.

Sherlock smiles through his tears and shakes his head. "Not this time, John."

"'Cause after the underground bomb thing, you know-" John says, trying to scowl as Sherlock shakes his head slowly, his eyes wide with denial. And then he sniffles and it's that small sound that breaks John's resolve.

He steps quickly forward and throws his arms around Sherlock's waist, pulling him close. Sherlock doesn't unlock his arms from around his chest, but he moves closer, bending forward and resting his forehead on John's shoulder, leaning into him.

"Sherlock, it's ok. Truly. I've always known you care for me-you wouldn't have tolerated my presence if you didn't. But it's- It's good to hear you say it. Finally."

Sherlock slowly pulls back and brushes away tears with his right hand drawing his fingers away and smoothing the salty liquid over them, not seeming to comprehend that he is actually crying. John backs off a bit, lightly gripping his shoulders and Sherlock regards his hands with a puzzled expression.

"This ok?" John asks, stiffening, suddenly unsure of himself, doubting his intuition. Sherlock nods and scrubs as this face again, but doesn't pull away.

"I am better now, I think. I'm, uh, sorry for soaking your robe." Sherlock sniffs. John squeezes his right shoulder lightly to indicate that everything is fine without saying anything that would embarrass Sherlock further, but he doesn't remove his hands.

"We should talk about this, Sherlock," he says gently, but shakes his head when Sherlock stiffens. "Not tonight. Maybe not till all this is over. But we should. It would be such a huge mistake not to."

Sherlock blinks at him and nods. "Mary-" Sherlock says guiltily.

"Mary set me on this path, Sherlock," John says slowly.

Sherlock's eyes widen. "John, given that we're apparently dead set on blowing every other social norm out the fucking window, can I tell you that I love your wife without the risk of having my neck broken?" he asks seriously.

John is sorely tempted to drag out his answer, but he can't bring himself to do that to Sherlock. Even after the underground bomb incident.

"Mary will be delighted to hear you tell her yourself," he says. "She already knows that you're fond of her. Tell her, though. It will make her so happy," John answers.

Sherlock nods, looking somewhat stunned. All of a sudden, John feels recent events sweep around the corner and club him in the back of the head. He is suddenly so tired he feels weak and he presses his eyes shut and sways slightly.

"John." There is much of normal Sherlock in that tone, and John looks up into his smile. "You're wrecked. Go to bed."

"Ice," John answers.

"Yes, I'll get one of Mycroft's minions to get me some. That's what the pull on the side of the bed is for, by the way. It's a summoner of minions."

"Just like _Downton Abbey_," John says, feeling stupid with fatigue. He is suddenly and swiftly hugged to Sherlock's chest and listens to the rumble of Sherlock's sudden laughter as he is pushed toward the door.

"John, you are _such_ a pillock," Sherlock says, shoving John out into the dimly lit hallway. "Good night," says warmly, still laughing, and softly closes the door as John turns away smiling.

In a daze, John wanders down to the other end and realises with subdued panic that he can't remember which of the five doors at the end of the hallway is his and Mary's. He had just turned in a second circle when the door to his right cracked open enough to reveal an unruly mop of light blond hair.

"Mary, thanks," he says, and she reaches out and grabs his hand, hauling him inside. He leans against her, out on his feet, and she guides him over to their bed sitting him down on his edge and silently guiding his hand to where their daughters nestled in the centre so that he could avoid disturbing them.

They slide under the sheets, bracketing the children between them and John reaches over their heads to slide his hand between Mary's cheek and the pillow. She nuzzles into his palm and he feels an almost incandescent lightness spread through his body. He drifts off, and the last thing he senses is the softness of her breath on his wrist before he is pulled under.

Sherlock remains awake for some time, staring into the dying flames in the fireplace, trying to categorise his emotional responses to one John Watson and failing to find a box the right shape to fit them in.

He is surprised that his inability to organise his thoughts fails to upset him, shocked that he is able to let go of the problem instead of worrying it constantly.

He takes comfort by the realisation that no matter what form their affections take, he and John will always be fine, and better than fine. He drifts off, and his last thoughts are of how John's hands felt, so gentle and steady and strong, just like the man himself.


	8. Chapter 8

"My _God_, woman, don't break my wrist!"

John snaps awake to the site of Sherlock crouching near the bed, grasping his right wrist. Mary is sitting bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide, reaching for him.

"Sorry! Sorry, you startled me! You ok?" she asks anxiously.

John flops back against the pillows and smirks at Sherlock remembering the first time he had accidentally startled Mary from sleep. He'd found himself suddenly on the floor with a knee on his chest and a knife at his throat. Luckily for Sherlock, Mary had got somewhat out of the habit of having sharp objects about her person where her children might accidentally access them.

"Fine," Sherlock says shortly, allowing Mary to reach out and grasp his other arm. John's eyes narrow as he realises Sherlock is already miles away, mentally speaking.

"What's happened?" John asks flatly. Sherlock shifts and clasps Mary's extended hand in his raising it quickly to his lips to show no harm done, but his gaze is dark as he regards John, his face carefully blank.

"Let's go look, shall we?" he says quietly. "Leave Shirley and Miyah with Jackson and come to the Library. We'll have breakfast," he finishes, a note of manic lightness in his voice that bodes no good, and he's gone from the room.

Mary casts John a stricken look.

"I hope-"

"No, Mary, it's not you. But, unless I'm mistaken, the game is once again on. Except...I don't know. Usually that's a good thing," John gets out of bed and scoops up Shirley, snuggling her to him gently as Miyah starts fussing for breakfast.

With a momentary pang of guilt, Mary and John give them over to the effusively enthusiastic care of the butler and cook and make their way to the library where an entire quarter panel of the wall of books has made way for a giant flat screen TV.

Sherlock is rewinding and replaying a recording in slow motion. Mycroft sits at the back of the room scowling down at his iPad. Automatically Mary pulls the robe she's wearing more fully across herself, wishing she'd changed before coming in.

"Have some tea and coffee and whatever before you lose your appetite," Mycroft drawls without looking up.

Breakfast is laid out on a small table by the window. Mary appreciates the coffee. She never drinks tea and that makes living with John just a bit rough sometimes.

John holds his mug in his hand and takes a seat in front of the TV.

"What are we looking at, Sherlock?" he asks, the frozen frame on the TV too blurry to suss out.

"I'll play this from the beginning," Sherlock says and a recording of that morning's news comes on. Thirty seconds into the broadcast, the screen fuzzes into static and abruptly chaotic images flash in rapid succession. John stares for a second, then tenses.

"Wait, that's-"

"Keep watching," Mycroft says grimly.

The images slow. It's footage of Sherlock over the years, badly cobbled together, short bursts of action mixed with intermittent static.

The footage depicts many of his chases and show him pelting down alleys and tackling or restraining his marks, in some cases rather violently-John sees parts of himself in several of the videos all of which seem to be taken from the vantage point of the ubiquitous cameras posted around every major London street. The picture the video paints is not one that is remotely flattering for Sherlock.

To anyone unfamiliar with the context, it would seem that Sherlock is the attacker rather than- Well, John has to admit that Sherlock is the attacker, albeit a legally justified one. Well, mostly legally justified. Certainly morally justified.

"This is wrong," John says slowly as the images give way to the news cast with a final burst of static. "That nonsense with discrediting you-It's all been cleared up." his voice rises as something remarkably like panic starts to stir in his gut.

"Yes," Sherlock muses quietly, rewinding the footage. "This is something new." He sips his tea and makes a face. "Mycroft, what the hell is this?" he asks, pushing the cup as far away from his person as possible.

"I was recently in China, brother mine, and took a fancy to the delightful pu erh tea they were serving at the embassy in Yunan. They saw fit to send me home with a generous supply. It's quite good, though I admit it may be an acquired taste."

John sips his tea and is pleasantly surprised by the nutty, rich flavour.

"Delicious," he says smiling. Mycroft nods at him, eyebrows raised.

"Liar," Sherlock growls, steepling his fingers in front of his face. "Probably sent you home with enough of this foul stuff to keep you away," he murmurs, his eyes losing focus. Mary recognises the tone. It's Sherlock's "there's more important things to think about than bloody Chinese bloody tea" tone.

She pours him a cup of coffee and creams and sweetens it before handing it to him and he smiles at her, absently sipping.

Mycroft puts the stops the replay and switches to live TV. After muting it, he begins flicking through channels. The video is being featured all the news shows, and the hosts comment on it with professionally confused looks on their faces.

"At least they're confused and not-not like before," John says remembering all to clearly the vicious beating Sherlock had taken in the press as Moriarty had torn him to shreds.

Mycroft huffs and tosses his iPad at John who looks down at the revolting site of Kitty Riley's smug smile. Her editorial article thanking the vigilante filmmaker for exposing the dangerous activities of one Sherlock Holmes has already been shared on Facebook 500 times and has an astronomical twitter count. Two hours after it was written.

"Any media attention is unwelcome," Mycroft scowls.

"Still can't figure out how he broadcasts, huh?" Mary winces sympathetically. It's so rare for Mycroft to fall short in these matters. Mycroft treats her to a blank, almost hostile look.

"It's not important," Sherlock mutters. "It doesn't matter in the least how he does it. What matters is why!" He jolts out of his chair grabbing the TV box off Mycroft's desk and flips back to the video.

He slows down the frame rate by half and then even more, and they watch his face, contorted by exertion and fury, flow slowly and grainily across the screen.

There is a quick burst of static even in that frame rate then the next scene. Sherlock's eyes widen and he raises the frame rate, getting so close to the big screen that his nose is practically pushing into it. Another burst of static.

"Mycroft, have your people suss out the message in the static. As soon as we understand to whom this is directed, the sooner a course of action will be clear to us."

"And you'll be doing what in the meantime?" Mycroft asks blandly, his fingers flying over his phone.

"Getting the hell out of this...this _church_ and going back home, for one," Sherlock says, pausing at the door, his hand half lifted to the knob. "I assume the demo charges were a scare?" He asks, regarding Mycroft over his shoulder.

"Dismantled." Mycroft answers, not looking up from his iPad. Sherlock nods curtly and is through the door.

"So there were bombs?" John asks his chin jerking towards his chest, and Mycroft deigns to look up and meet his gaze.

"Dismantled, as I said. But yes. Enough to give the whole block a second story view of the underground tubes. We've checked everything rather carefully. Baker Street is once again secure." He flashes a quick, too-cheerful smile and drops his eyes to his phone.

"You mean it's secure now," Mary says quietly. "Apparently, it wasn't before."

Mycroft stops fidgeting with his phone for a moment, but won't raise his eyes. "Quite so. My...apologies on that front."

"You're doing your best. Just remember, Mycroft Homes, you, too, are mortal," Mary says, almost kindly, and leaves the room to hunt down her clothes.

John stands in the room awkwardly, then swipes another croissant and his teacup and nods sharply to Mycroft before following his wife.

He doesn't see Mycroft put down his phone and lower his head into his hands, scrubbing at his eyes, doesn't hear the ragged sigh that comes from his centre.

Mary thinks it odd, as they unpack the car and eagerly tumble into their home at 221 Baker Street, that the house still feels like everything a home should feel like: safe, secure, comfortable.

She was attacked here, they were spied on through the windows, Mycroft almost certainly had at least one camera in the house, and yet it still felt safe, comforting and, well, homey. Especially when juxtaposed against Mycroft's manse.

Sherlock ran straight up the stairs, wanting to check on some experiment or other that might still be viable. She and John settled Shirley and Miyah on the living room floor and John stayed with them while Mary went to make tea.

It is all so natural and so normal, these rhythms, and yet she cherishes every moment, having never expected to have the gift of normalcy and comparative serenity. The afternoon sun drifts through the kitchen window, warmly illuminating the room.

"John, I'm not going to buy new curtains," She said suddenly, fighting back a lump in her throat. "I will wash the children in the bathroom from now on, but I refuse to-I mean I can't give up-" Her hands shake as she holds the kettle under the tap.

"Of course, Mary. I'm sure he's gone from that place now anyway," John says. He understands completely what she means. Everything else is transitory. This place must remain the same, grounding and solid and home.

"What do you think Mycroft will find in the static?" Mary asks, joining John in the parlour and watching Miyah and Shirley teaming up on an innocent radio, methodically taking it apart and gumming the parts. Mary wonders absently if she shouldn't put a stop to it but neither child has ever shown a propensity to ingest any of the detritus of their experiments in destruction. John grimaces.

"Nothing good," John says heavily. "There has to be more to this than just the video. It's not damning enough to do mischief on its own and it's not even...cohesive." He says, frustrated, hating all things that cast Sherlock in a less than positive light.

Later that evening they're watching _Top Gear_-Mary's choice-and Jeremy Clarkson is cut off mid-rant suddenly by a burst of static. The following scenes are clearer than the last, obviously not captured by CCTV but rather by professional looking cameras.

John's blood chills as he sees Sherlock, face battered, lip bleeding, wearing unfamiliar clothes, charging after a man in a hoodie, tackling him to the ground and slamming his head off the concrete once, twice, before standing up over the still form, his teeth bared in an unpleasant and smug sneer.

Sherlock looks up, off camera through squinting eyes, and raises his hands above his head as sirens sound and lights flash. His arms are grasped by two policemen wearing foreign uniforms, the writing is in Cyrillic, and abruptly Jeremy Clarkson is back, finishing a tirade against the Porsche 911 after a rather lengthy bit of static.

John and Mary stare at each other and hear Sherlock pounding down the stairs. He arrives in their flat seemingly composed, but his jaw is clenched, his hands jiggling at his side.

"You have questions," he says quickly, then continues before they answer. "Russia, one year ago, he had just committed his fifth double homicide, there was a bounty on him dead or alive. They still do that there, unofficially.

"I wasn't following the case, exactly. He wasn't part of Moriarty's nonsense, but I had identified him to the authorities and next thing I knew he was after me. I did what I had to do to protect myself. I did not accept the bounty," he finished, clenching his teeth again, his body radiating tension like a violin string stretched too tight.

"Ok," Mary says. "Cuppa?"

Abruptly, all the tension dissolves and Sherlock unwinds like a spring, almost falling into a chair by the kitchen table. John realises abruptly that Sherlock had been worried, even scared. Possibly terrified just now.

"Sherlock, what was that?" he asked getting up and sitting across the table.

"I just told you, John, I-"

"No, not that. This," John says, mimicking Sherlock's recent rigor.

"Oh, I have no idea," Sherlock says, tucking his chin back and picking at his fingernail. "Or I was upset that I didn't realise that whole altercation was planned and filmed at the time. Pick one."

"So it had nothing to do with you being terrified that we thought you were a murderer? From some stupid video?" John asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh! My husband the detective!" Mary laughs from behind John. She places three mugs on the table and turns back to the teapot. "Let be, my love, let be."

Sherlock relaxes a bit further, and pulls out his phone and fires off a quick text.

"Mycroft should have been able to isolate something from all that static by now," he snarls quietly and scowls at the phone that distinctly doesn't chime in reply.

Mary sets tea and a plate of cheese down on the table, slightly in front of Sherlock. He's begun fidgeting with the phone again and almost subconsciously nibbles at the cheese while frowning as he scrolls through app after app.

John winks at Mary and sips his tea, wondering what the backlash from this recent video will be. Sherlock suddenly slams down the phone.

"There is nothing, just nothing I can do until something else happens. It's infuriating."

"You need a case, Sherlock," John says suddenly. "You need a distraction."

"You're mad," Sherlock says.

"Not a bit of it," Mary snips back. "He's right. Text Lestrade. See what he's got. Or go down to Bart's and beat up a cadaver. Get the stress out. Do you good," she says smiling.

Sherlock hesitates then quirks a smile at John. "Does it bother you to have two people who are always right in your life?" he asks.

"It was my idea, you berk!" John answers, smiling. "And no, it doesn't. Not one tiny, little bit."

Sherlock breezes through the door to New Scotland Yard and is instantly aware that every eye in the lobby is trained on him.

He's here by Lestrade's request, albeit after he had texted Lestrade requesting the request. The man is good for something at least, this case would be interesting even if he had no ulterior motives.

He pauses just after passing the security desk and glares at Dunnock who sits behind it glaring right back at him.

"In the eight years that I have been blowing past your desk when not in the company of DI Lestrade, you have never once neglected to insist that I sign your infernal book. Explain yourself." Sherlock snaps, striding back to the desk.

"Maybe I couldn't be arsed to deal with such a monumental dickhead so early in the morning!" Dunnock snarls back at him, leaping to his feat and leaning over the desk, his face barely an inch from Sherlock's.

Internally Sherlock reels. Dunnock's tone, his aggressive body language, his invasion of Sherlock's space, all these things are so entirely out of character that Sherlock is very privately shocked.

Externally, Sherlock raises an eyebrow, staring down his aquiline nose at Dunnock, and makes a few easy deductions.

"No need to take your anger at your wife's indiscretions out on me," He drawls with the smug, self-assured tone that gets right up everyone's ass. "It's not my fault you haven't been able to please her sexually for the past year." He ignores the snarl of rage as he swirls away, walking swiftly through the glass doors.

"Dunnock called up," Lestrade snarls by way of a greeting. "You don't always have to be such a complete ass." His eyes when they meet Sherlock's have no humour in them whatsoever. "I won't have my people abused by you. You're useful, but I don't need you that much," he finishes, slamming a folder shut with so much force it shakes the desk.

_Something wrong wrong danger wrong wrong_

Sherlock shakes his head sharply. His internal monologue is getting more and more intrusive. He could almost feel the words searing across the tops of his eyeballs. He studies Lestrade for an instant.

Lestrade is glaring at him, his breathing is elevated, his pulse is apparent in carotid artery on his temple. He's literally gripping his desk in a bid to maintain control of his temper.

It has to be the video, Sherlock thinks. It has all these people on edge. How many times will he be forced to prove himself to these mundanes, he wonders, not for the first time.

"Would you like an explanation of last night's video Detective Inspector?" Sherlock says coolly.

"No," Lestrade snaps. "There's no time. In case you forgot, there's a bloody murdering rapist walking around the streets of London at the moment. I don't have time to deal with your, your-"

"My petty peccadilloes of murder?" Sherlock asks.

"It wasn't in _my_ jurisdiction," Lestrade snarls, and Sherlock suddenly understands that, at this moment, Lestrade wishes it had been, wishes that these "crimes" of Sherlock's were within his right to avenge, even though he himself had set Sherlock on the majority of them.

Sherlock understands suddenly that Lestrade, a man who he has come to trust implicitly, is going to try to slip Sherlock up so he can take him down. He grins.

How _interesting_.

The crime scene is every bit as messy as it looked in the pictures Lestrade had sent him. Body sprawled out in a vast puddle of blood. Sherlock uses the scene as a chance to observe the reactions of the other Yarders to his presence. The changes are subtle, fascinating.

He catalogues the normal reactions to his arrival-irritation, apprehension, dismissal, fear, rejection, repugnance, and adds to them new reactions that begin to surface after mere minutes in his presence: tension, anger, resentment, agitation, the latter escalating exponentially the longer he stays. He files the information away for later analysis and turns his attention to the dead woman.

By the time he gets to actually observing the body, the atmosphere around the crime scene is rife with hostility and tension, and silence gradually falls.

Sherlock, looks up and realises with surprise that everyone is staring at him. No one is talking. No one is moving. Everyone's attention is riveted on him in a way that might have pleased him except for how much it unnerved him.

They're staring at him not what he's doing. Adrenaline sparks through his system and alarm bells start ringing in the back of his head as he senses a general shift in the posture of the small group of people surrounding him. He stands abruptly, turning to Lestrade who is positively glaring at him. In his periphery, he sees Donovan stiffen, clenching hands into fists. It is definitely time to go.

"If you look at the CCTV tapes from the corner of Arch and Sydney Street between the 11 and 11:45 PM last night, you will be able to identify her attacker, who wore no form of disguise," Sherlock says shortly, and turns away to leave before Lestrade can answer or ask for an explanation.

He passes by Donovan as he leaves the scene and she hisses as the tail of his coat brushes her.

He stops, hearing a word in that sharp intake of breath.

"What did you say?" he asks shortly, not even turning around to face her, because he's too busy mapping out routes of escape, should they become necessary.

"Arsehole," she snarls. Her consonants fall slightly wrong and Sherlock's mind whirls. He recognises the cadence, but can't retreat to his memories to research it in such a charged environment. He files it away for later and walks around the corner consciously forcing his shoulders to relax as he realises he's been bracing for...something.

Sherlock continues walking swiftly along the sidewalk, not thinking of where he's going or in what direction he's travelling.

His blood is racing and his breath comes short as he struggles to control his response to the adrenaline rushing through his system. He finds a bench in a small park and sits for a moment, staring into middle distance, and forces his body to calm.

He steeples his fingers in front of his lips and calls up the memory of Donovan's slurred epithet. He cross references it with everyone he can remember that has called him that name before, twitching his head slightly as he fails to find a connection with any of the faces that fit in that category.

He concentrates on the sound of the liquid "r", phonetically at odds with almost any London accent and certainly divergent from Sally's. The sound echoes in his mind and all of a sudden Harry's face plasters itself over his consciousness, her face frozen into the furious expression that Sherlock had filed away from the baby shower.

**The intonation is the same, the inflection similar in its incongruity**. But what possible connection to Harry could Donovan possibly have? His mind spins through hundreds of potentials but none fit. He backs up to the word and the sound of the consonants and looks for more correlations. He finds them suddenly.

Lestrade. Donovan. Harry. Dunnock.

Three Yarders and one civilian. Three people that know him well and one person he'd never met. His eyes open slowly.

Not enough data. Time to experiment.

Sherlock sees a crowded coffee shop on the street adjacent to him and decides that's as good a place as any. He walks in and purchases a tea and sits in the most centrally located table he can find.

It takes less than three minutes for the general atmosphere to take a turn decidedly for the worst. The background babble slowly mutes and then dies altogether. The coffee shop becomes silent and the people become restless, agitated and uhappy. There are a few exceptions. They leave quickly, glancing around in consternation.

Sherlock watches in fascination as thirty or so people slowly but surely shift their focus to him. Abruptly, he stands and exits the store.

"Run," he hears someone say, deadpan, as he exists the door. The "r" rolls, liquid from the woman's mouth.

Sherlock will now admit it even to himself. He is frightened. Frightened for his life. Every nerve in him is singing in tension as he walks along the sidewalk.

He realises that people have begun stopping after he passes, turning to look at him. No, he corrects himself, glancing out of the corner of his eye, turning to glare at him.

He removes his coat, though it makes him feel naked and unprotected, snags baseball cap from a souvenir vendor's display in passing, not even recognising the theft in his distraction, and tucks his curls up under the cap, pulling the brim down over his face. It helps. No one stops on the next block and he turns down two additional streets before attempting to hail a cab.

After the third failed attempt, he realises smugly how much his normal outward appearance affects the world around him. The fourth cab stops.

He gives the cabby cross streets two blocks Southeast of the 200 block of Baker Street and sits back. He removes the ball cap and scrubs at his hair. His phone buzzes. It is a blocked number. He answers the call.

"Get to cover immediately. Baker Street is preferable. Can you make it?" Mycroft says with no preamble, and his voice bears none of its usual affected boredom.

"Of course," Sherlock answers, and hangs up. Mycroft does not want his orders in text or from his own phone. This must go very deep indeed.

Sherlock replaces the hat on his head, though he loathes how it feels.

A thrill runs through him as pieces begin to fall into place and he stitches together the beginnings of a theory. It's improbable. It's almost impossible, but one by one, he eliminates more mundane solutions.

It's big. The biggest. He grins as his heart rate ratchets right back up again. It's the biggest case he will ever take.

The crime is poisoning and the victim is the entire population of London.


	9. Chapter 9

John startles violently as Sherlock bursts through the door to their flat and throws a baseball cap, of all things, violently across the room. His eyes are wild but his expression is one John had missed as of late-a fierce exultation that means he has solved something big.

"What have you found then?" he asks, rising from his seat in the living room, careful not to rouse his daughters who had fallen asleep snuggled together against the arm of the couch. Sherlock grabs him as soon as he's in arm's reach, grasping him by the shoulders and bending slightly down to look him straight in the eyes.

"The biggest, most amazing case. In the history of cases. The most important mystery that I'll ever solve. This is THE ONE, John," he says, his voice shaking with excitement. He squints down suddenly, frowning.

"Why don't you hate me?" he asks, releasing John abruptly and backing up to observe him. "Say 'arsehole,'" he adds, almost as an afterthought. John rolls his eyes.

"Who says I don't hate you, arsehole?" he asks, grinning. Mary comes out of her room, sweating lightly from a workout.

"Don't say arsehole in front of the children," she chides grinning. "What's going on?"

"Neither of you is affected." Sherlock says, slowly. "Well that's useful. I won't explain a thing till Mycroft gets here. John, make tea!"

"Make your own tea," John says, laughing. "All I've got is that stuff Mycroft sent home with me and you hate that." He adds. Sherlock scowls at him and darts out of the room and up the stairs. Mary shoots him a questioning look and he repeats what Sherlock's told him.

"Guess Mycroft is coming then," she says. John nods, and then rolls his eyes.

"Fine. I make the tea, you get your shower," he says, grabbing her quickly as she walks away and pulling her back, burying his nose in her sweat-damp hair. "Though, it's a shame, I love the smell of you when you've just finished whatever the hell it is you do in there," he murmurs. Mary squeezes him and pulls gently away, smiling.

"Later, my love," she says. "I'll do push-ups right before... work up a bit of a sweat." And with that she's off. John hears Sherlock pounding back down the steps and looks anxiously at Shirley and Miyah. They show no signs of waking yet. Sherlock pelts into the room, throwing a tin at John, who catches it.

"It's ironic that the only thing you have in common with the rest of the British population is your undying love of Tetley, Sherlock," John says, turning away, only to be physically hauled back around by his shoulder to face a very, very intense-looking Sherlock.

"What did you say?" Sherlock demands, his fingers tightening on John's shoulder.

"Sorry not to imply that you have anything in common with us mere mortals-"

"Repeat _exactly_ what you said, John!"

"I said 'It's ironic that the only thing you have in common with the rest of the British population is your undying love of Tetley.' It's all you ever drink," John says, raising his eyebrows.

"And one of five brands that make up 80% of the tea imbibed by Britain. John, as usual you are the inadvertent conductor of light, the highway down which my brilliance blazes like a Ferrari," Sherlock shouts, impulsively grabbing John's face and kissing his forehead before snatching the tea container out of his hand and pelting back through the door.

"You know about Ferraris?" John gasps out, laughing.

Sherlock pops back in the door. "What with you and Mary watching that idiot show all the time, how can I not? I can't delete fast enough!" he says, grinning like a madman. "Now, pop around the corner and pick up boxes of Lipton, PG Tips, Tetley, Tata and Typhoo." Sherlock finishes before leaping for the stairs.

"Sherlock-"

"_Now_ John!" Sherlock shouts from the stairwell and John hears him rapidly ascend to his flat.

_Now_, John decides, is all very well and good but he's not about to leave his children unattended. Mary takes ridiculously short showers; she should be out any second. He fidgets for a moment. Paces for another. Then nearly runs into the bathroom, yanking the curtain aside.

"Mary, have to run an errand for Sherlock, girls are sleeping on the couch you won't be more than a minute more, you gorgeous utterly beautiful woman, will you?" he blurts out in a rush and she gapes at him for a second before smiling.

"Nope, go, I'll be out in two seconds." She laughs and he's already out the door.

Mycroft is just about to ring the doorbell when John jogs back around the corner, grocery bag in hand.

"Perfect timing," he says, scanning his finger into the biometric lock they had installed.

"Indeed," Mycroft intones. "Did Sherlock arrive?"

"Not half an hour ago with his trousers on fire. Figuratively speaking." He adds quickly at Mycroft's uncharacteristic look of alarm. "I am _so _looking forward to an explanation," John mutters as they enter the foyer.

"Here, Mycroft!" Sherlock yells immediately from his apartment. "John, you too. Everyone in fact." John hands Mycroft the bag and goes to fetch Mary.

By the time they make it upstairs, newly awakened Shirley and Miyah in tow, the kitchen of 221B looks like a tea factory has exploded in it.

"It's in the tea, Mycroft. It has to be!" Sherlock is yelling. Shirley laughs, startling him and he immediately modulates his voice.

"Ridiculous," Mycroft says shortly. "Your paranoia has finally got the better of your non-existent good sense."

"Mycroft, Sherlock has been many things, but paranoid has never been one of them," Mary says firmly. "They always are out to get him." John stares at the samples that Sherlock has prepared. Tea leaves of every sort on numbered slides. He sighs.

"You have to steep it, Sherlock," he says patiently. "Boiling water releases the agent." Sherlock stares at him with a priceless expression of wonder and surprise. It's gone almost as soon as it appears.

"Of course," he says shortly, putting the kettle on.

"More your area isn't it John?" Mycroft bites, rolling his eyes.

"Shut it Mycroft. You're stroppy 'cause you're wrong." Mary smiles, as she so often does, to take the bite out of her words.

"Sherlock, what's going on?" John asks, though he feels certain he already has a good idea.

"Baskerville, John. Harry," Sherlock says as he steeps five mugs of different types of tea.

"John, can you please translate this for me?" Mary huffs, hefting Shirley in her arms.

"I don't think that's strictly-" Mycroft begins.

"He's already told her about Baskerville, Mycroft. She's his _wife_. Shut _up," _Sherlock interrupts harshly, using a pipette to drip single drops of tea onto slides.

John pauses, regarding everyone then sighs and gets started.

"Sherlock thinks that the same derivation of the Baskerville drug that was used on Harry to incite her to harm us is being administered, through tea, to the majority of the London populace. We're immune because we've been sucking down that Chinese tea Mycroft gave us instead of the more common tea everyone else drinks. And because you drink coffee, Mary, you daft creature.

"He's doubtless encountered more than his usual share of animosity while on the case with Lestrade today and is convinced that the drug, paired with the film clips on the telly are inciting mass hysteria causing everyone in our fair city to fear him or make him the target of aggression.

"Possibly Mycroft has just divulged information pertaining to the content of the subliminal messages embedded in the static interspersed through the videos that corroborates Sherlock's theory and he's currently trying to prove to his brother that the drug is present in the tea by finding it on his expensive, but not expensive enough microscope.

"He'll need to go to Bart's, of course, to get the samples tested thoroughly enough to convince Mycroft that he's right, even though Mycroft already _knows_ he's right but won't admit it.

"The result of their idiotic fraternal feud is that Mycroft is about to delay issuing a public service announcement about 'potential e-coli strains in Britain's best-loved teas'" John continues, crooking his finger in air quotes. "for no reason other than that he can't stand it when his little brother figures out something before he does. Honestly, how long do the British people have to endure being poisoned because of your unrequited bro-love?" John finishes, outraged.

If there were crickets in 221B Baker Street (living ones anyway,) they would not have dared break the ensuing silence. Mycroft, however, dares, in the form of a surprised snort.

"Well," he fingers the keyboard of his phone. "Suppose we just skip the formalities this time and get to it?" he asks, raising his eyebrows at Sherlock. "If you're _quite_ sure."

"Quite," Sherlock states, staring at John with an unreadable expression. Mary seems to have found something incredibly interesting in the folds of Shirley's bib. John stares around them all and sighs.

"I need tea, after that," He says, definitively. "Sherlock, judging by the stock you have up here, I'm going to go down and indulge in some of Mycroft's. Text me when you need to borrow Mary's hair dye so you can disguise yourself for whatever madness you're already planning. Though I think you'll look horrid as a blonde. Better than the baseball cap though."

With that, John sweeps out of the room with Miyah cooing in his arms, for a moment indulging in a brief fantasy of invisible coat tails swirling about in his wake.

Mary catches Sherlock's eyes.

"You're rubbing off on him," she says, and a sideways smile lifts the dimple in her cheek, something that never fails to affect him in ways he doesn't understand.

"About time. I only hope it's not a one-way street," he murmurs thoughtfully, turning back to his microscope.

Mycroft, squints at his phone.

"John was right about...everything except one thing. We can't tip our hand have two days to solve this, brother mine, before I will be forced to release information about the tea. If those responsible are not apprehended, they'll simply find another vector for the drug, perhaps one harder to trace. But I can only obscure the facts for so long. Two days," he says, his brows knitting as he glances at his buzzing phone. "If we're lucky." He finishes and sees himself out.

Mary lingers, watching Sherlock do this and that with tea leaves, bouncing Shirley in her arms as she wanders aimlessly around the familiar parlour. Shirley reaches for the skull on the mantle when she passes close.

"No, no, Shirley. That's Uncle Sherlock's special friend," she says, swinging them away. A gentle hand restrains her and turns her back and Sherlock is standing there, holding the scull out to Shirley's eager grasp.

"Nonsense, Mary. Any friend of mine is friend of hers. Anything of mine is...hers. Yours, and John's. Miyah's," he says quietly, watching Shirley hug the scull to her. "Everything," he finishes, his eyes distant.

"Sherlock _fucking_ Holmes." He startles at Mary's hiss. She quickly puts Shirley down in John's chair to play with the skull and whirls back on him advancing so quickly that he is forced backwards against the mantle.

"You utter _bastard,_" she snarls. "I don't want to hear your last will and testament! You're going to do it again. Don't _lie_ to me Sherlock, I can _tell_. You're going to leave here, alone, and try to save the goddamn world by _yourself._"

He stares at her, at a loss for words.

"If you think for one second I'm going to let that happen, you're dumber than Anderson." She's positively growling.

"Mary," he starts, scrabbling for some semblance of control. "What choice-"

"No." she says, cutting him off. "Not this time. You pick one of us, since we can't both leave the children. You pick one of us to help you. Whoever you think will most successfully accomplish whatever goal there is, and get you through it alive.

_"You_ will pick because I don't know what's involved enough to make that call. But you will _not _go alone. I will incapacitate you, again, before I let you."

Sherlock feels his blood chill as he faces a basilisk stare that Magnusson would have been proud of. "Mary," he stammers. "I can't endanger-" he's cut off by a gasp-scream of pure rage. He grunts in pain and surprise as his knees are suddenly knocked out from under him and he's pinned to the ground, struggling, his arms awkwardly pinned beneath him and against the fireplace Mary's knee on his chest and Mary's livid face hovering inches above his.

"John almost killed himself _twice_ while you were gone," she snarls. "Gun in hand. The first time, it misfired, because he hadn't cleaned it in so long. This is _John_ we're talking about. The second time, I found him, just in time. You don't think that's endangering?"

Sherlock stops struggling abruptly and listens.

"It is not for of love for you that I insist, though, God help me, I do love you. It is for love of John and because I am selfish, as you know.

"Because if he dies, I have you and the girls. If I die, he has you and the girls. But if you die, I am a single mother. And I can't."

Feeling that she has done everything in her power to make her point, Mary releases Sherlock and rises. He lies still, looking up at her with wide eyes, gasping for breath.

As Mary stares at him lying there, stunned by what she has told him, her heart cracks and she feels like every rib has broken. She's beyond positive that if she opens her mouth again, blood will spill from her lips rather than words, so she presses her lips tight and then presses a hand over them and distinctly _doesn't_ look at her daughter's reaction to this little episode.

Sherlock starts sitting up and she immediately reaches forward, offering him her hand.

For one, hideous, soul-dissolving moment he recoils, but then he's up on his feet, rushing at her, grabbing her, pulling her against him, folding himself around her, pressing his face against her neck and shuddering as tears slide down his cheeks.

Behind Sherlock's tightly shut eyelids, John, sits at the kitchen table with that half smile that makes his eyes look sadder than Jesus, a gun, loaded and cocked laying in his lap as he stares out the window. The vision punishes Sherlock, beats him and breaks him like no whip ever could. He gasps back a sob and fists his fingers into the back of Mary's shirt.

She holds him, cradling his head against her shoulder and rubs his back. After a time Sherlock stills against her, his breath hitching. The incredible tears have dried. They release each other by degrees until he pulls away a few inches and looks at her, his arms still wrapped loosely around her shoulders, resenting and revelling in the sympathy her face reflects. He draws a shaky breath, shakes his head sharply, and pulls himself together.

"I think it will have to be you," he says finally. "But I'm not sure. I don't know what's involved yet. I'll know by tomorrow morning."

"You have me, Sherlock," she says and her voice is steadier than she can believe. "Always, for anything, but especially when you need a gun or a helping hand."

They release each other slowly, over the following minutes.

"Is this what it's like all the time?" Sherlock asks her, loathing how his voice shakes.

"What?"

"When you love someone?"

"Yes."

"It hurts, Mary. I can _see_ him-"

"I see him too, like that. All the time. Even when he's happy. There is nothing in the world I won't do to keep that grief from him, to keep that grief from myself."

"Love," Sherlock says the words like an expletive, spitting it out, "is such a hideous burden." His hands tighten convulsively bunching the fabric of her shirt again.

"Yes," she says, meeting his gaze. "But also an unexpected gift, for the likes of you and me."

There is silence as they regard each other.

"I am twice burdened," he murmurs.

The tension in Mary's body abruptly dissipates and she leans into him. He pulls her close again, this time gently, smoothing her hair with one hand and rocking them slightly.

"You made us a promise, Sherlock," she says softly against his chest. "You said forever, and you almost fucked it up once already. Please, please don't leave us ever again." Sherlock presses his forehead to the crown of her head.

"I will try, for you. For him. And especially for them," he says. As one, they turn to look at Shirley. She's staring at them with her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide. Then she hefts the skull against her chest again, proprietarily.

"Skull!" she says clearly.


	10. Chapter 10

John groggily makes his way into the kitchen, having stayed up all night with Miyah, who had contracted one of her sudden fevers. Sherlock is sitting at their table grimacing at Chinese tea. He's wearing what John privately thinks of as his junkie clothes: baggy sweatshirt and dirty jeans.

"You look horrible," Sherlock says, looking up. John scowls.

"I was up all night. And look who's talking."

"I've been up all night too. How's Miyah?" Sherlock asks, changing the subject.

"Fever's down but it hasn't broken. I wonder when Shirley will start coming down with symptoms. They always get sick together," John groans, filling his cup and joining Sherlock at the table.

"So, judging by your, uh, transformation...you're going out," John says.

"Yes," Sherlock says, shutting the iPod off and laying it on the table. He follows the dust motes floating in the sunshine for a bit. At least that's what John thinks he's doing. He's probably doing something else.

John pours tea and pulls his computer over to him opening the London Evening Standard website as he does every morning. His eyes widen at the first headline.

"Rioting in London's South Bank"

Next to that, in smaller headlines, report after report of attacks, fires, chaos. Utter chaos.

"Jesus, Sherlock, did you see this?" John murmurs, his eyes wide with shock.

"The tea is altered just before it is packaged," Sherlock starts suddenly, completely ignoring the question. Of course he's seen it. "There are two packing plants in which the majority of British tea is processed.

"The entire process is automatic in both factories. Someone's been dosing the batches. Mycroft's people have uncovered the drug in tea packaged as late as last night. If Moran's seeding the tea himself, all I have to do is find out how, catch him in the act, and have him arrested… or abducted. Whatever it is that Mycroft does.

"The violence will only escalate the more the drug is consumed. I have less than 12 hours left before Mycroft will tell the British populace to quit drinking tea for a few days and they'll find another vector for the drug, one that's even less obvious. I'm not above admitting we got lucky figuring this one out so quickly."

"Then you've sunk a peg or two since we last spoke," John says, sucking down tea, thinking that Mycroft's ruined him for anything other than this probably hideously expensive pu erh stuff.

"In addition to limited time," Sherlock continues, pointedly ignoring John, "I don't have access my usual resources. Scotland Yard will arrest me as soon as look at me, and the homeless network drinks tea too. Pervasive stuff," he mutters.

"You know, that's about as close to saying you depend on other people as I think you'll ever get." John laughs. Mary walks into the room and all traces of his humour disappear as John makes a few quick deductions of his own.

She's wearing long black trousers, black boots, a black turtleneck and a grey jumper and carrying a long, narrow rectangular case in her hand. Not one stitch of brightly coloured clothing. Not one piece that stands out.

"No," he says quietly.

"Good morning to you too, love," she says breezily, putting her case down on the floor and pouring herself some tea from the pot Sherlock's made, nodding her thanks.

Sherlock covertly watches the John-getting-angry dance.

The metamorphosis from John-the-Blogger to John-the-Soldier had conjured the idea of a swordstick in Sherlock's mind the first time he saw it; an unassuming helpful crutch with a lethal-sharp secret hidden inside.

First, the military bearing returns. John's back straightens, his chin rises, his jaw firms, his shoulders square.

Then the smaller tells click into place in the same order every time. John's breathing slows, his hands relax, his nostrils flare, his head jerks sideways once, maybe twice if he's really angry.

Today is a three-jerk day. Sherlock clamps down on the smile and slides his gaze over to Mary who can read John's tells as easily as he can, and probably has added a few others to the list that he's not privy to.

They haven't been together long enough for Sherlock to have observed how Mary reacts to John in this situation and finds himself absolutely astounded.

Mary Watson doesn't change at all. She turns to John, scrunching her face up in a mew of sympathy and sits down with her tea, laying a hand on John's shoulder and kneading it.

"Mary, you can't-"

"Why not?"

"I can't-"

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"Please don't go."

"Someone has to."

"Then take my dog tags. They're lucky." John groans, surrendering, and the Soldier abruptly makes room for anxious-loving-husband-John.

"Can you find them for me love?" Mary asks, acquiescing.

John nods and walks towards their room.

Sherlock sips his tea, staring at Mary in fascination.

"How did you do that?" he asks. Admitting his ignorance is a small price to pay for a master class in John Watson management.

"When you realise that the only reason John ever gets angry at either of us is because he's terrified to lose us it becomes a matter of love rather than a battle. And I would lose a battle. He has the high ground since Leinster Gardens," she says.

"Brilliant," Sherlock comments. "Especially considering the fact that he can't come with us."

Sherlock slides the iPad over to Mary and she watches the newest instalment of Sherlock-cam.

This time it's more like John-Cam. John slamming a guy against a wall, John cold-clocking another guy from behind, John holding up the arm of a dead body at a crime scene, smiling past the camera.

"Smilig at a crime scene," Mary's tone drips sarcasm. "Well, I never"

"I'd just told him I'd make him dinner if he could find an entry wound-it was a tricky one. I don't know what he found funnier, the idea of me making dinner or the idea that I'd offer in public," Sherlock muttered.

"The former," John says, coming up behind Mary and placing his dog tags around her neck, tucking them into her turtleneck. Sherlock could see their faint outline under the fabric just above her heart. He feels his throat tighten. "You never did, by the way," John continues. "Cook me dinner. I'm still waiting."

"I'll consider it," Sherlock says blandly. "Why didn't I ever get lucky dog tags?"

"You never needed them. I was always there myself." John says seriously. There is still the shadow of the Soldier in his eyes as he regards Sherlock. There is also implicit warning and, if Sherlock is reading him right, a hint of hurt and not a little envy. Sherlock frowns.

"You know, John, you are gorgeous when you're manhandling fugitives," Mary says suddenly. "We should go on cases together, Sherlock!" She says, almost bouncing in her seat. John chuckles and the Soldier disappears again.

"People will talk," Sherlock says, grinning. John rolls his eyes.

"Call Mycroft and tell him to send someone to pick me and the girls up, Sherlock." John says, and it's really more of a request. Sherlock regards him in surprise.

"I assume he won't mind if we stay at his fortress while you two are off hunting." John continues, wondering if he's wrong.

"He'd better not," Sherlock says. Just as Sherlock palms his phone, John's buzzes. He looks at it and smiles.

"Great minds," John says. "He's on his way."

Sherlock scowls.

"Why do you feel the need for additional protection?" He asks. "It's hardly likely that anyone will attempt coming in here. Your presence is the required stimuli for aggression," Sherlock says.

"From what you and the news have been saying, this is not the safest place to be," John says. "Mycroft's fort is in an area of low population density. The children will be far safer there."

John is quiet for a bit, but Mary's staring at him too.

"Also, if one of you contacts me for help, I will be able to leave the children at Mycroft's." John says slowly. "Do. Not. Argue," he finishes, glaring at Sherlock who nods in agreement.

"A reasonable precaution."

"Where are you two headed?"

"Battersea plant first. The majority of the tea in London is shipped from there, and balance of probability has Moran at that location rather than the other, which is out in Sussex," Sherlock says. Mary nods.

"And you think that you're just going to traipse into the plant and snoop around to find what you're looking for do you?" John asks waspishly.

"Oh please," Sherlock says in disgust. "John, we broke into the most heavily guarded government testing plant in the UK in five minutes. What's a tea factory by comparison? Now if you'll excuse me, I need to fetch a few items before heading out. Pack up the babies, John, we'll see you later tonight," he says, putting emphasis on tonight.

John turns to Mary as Sherlock leaves the room.

"Is it this hard when I leave with him on cases?" he asks, slipping his arms around her shoulders.

"Yes. Every time. But it's what you live for, darling. It's what we both live for."

John buries his face against her neck as he draws her near.

"Promise me you'll both come back alive. I won't say unharmed, because that's too much to ask at this point. Just….alive," he murmurs.

"I promise. Sherlock will do whatever he can to keep me safe, you know that."

"Yes. The same can be said for you, Love. Take care of him. Blow Moran's fucking brains out if you have to."

Mary smiles with all her teeth.

"I thought we'd agreed on a pelvis shot. Good luck with the fever," she says, her comment perfectly timed with Miyah's fretful wail. John squeezes her shoulders one last time and hurries down the hall to his daughter.

The Battersea plant is huge. Massive. Gigantic. Confusing. Sherlock and Mary observe it from the car park, and Sherlock is chewing on his lip.

"No," Mary says, smiling.

"What?" Sherlock answers absently.

"Whatever scheme you're thinking up right now. No."

Sherlock has always exercised extreme restraint where Mary is concerned. He doesn't know why, but he ruthlessly curbs his impulses to lash out at her when she annoys him, something he's never consciously done for another person, even John.

He hopes she notices as he grinds his teeth together, creating a dam against a tide of vitriol that threatens to escape his lips. After a few seconds of breathing, he closes his eyes and says, "Since you're not telepathic, unless you are, in which case we'll have to have a long chat, you cannot know what I was planning. Your immediate refusal to co-operate makes further progress…difficult. Wouldn't you at least like to hear my proposed plan of action before…"

"Mmmmm. No. Why don't we just use these?" she interrupts, tossing a leather wallet at him. His eyes pop open as it hits him on the side of the head. He catches it. He opens it.

Inside is an FSA badge with his picture on it. In the picture, he has sprouted heavier eyebrows and a moustache and his eyes are chocolate brown. The photoshop job is impeccable. By the time he looks up at her, Mary has a makeup kit out and is already adjusting the line of her eyebrow, the shape of her eyeliner, bronzing the colour of her skin.

"Oh yeah, and here," She says, handing Sherlock a small case containing his moustache, beard, spirit gum and contacts. "You'll look like shite in a beard, but they'll make you wear one of those stupid beard net things and that'll hide your appearance even more. There's an ill-fitting suit in the back seat," she says, working dark eye shadow into the depressions above her eyes. "We'll fill your brows out with pencil."

Sherlock sighs, wanting badly to know where she got the badges but not wanting to give her the chance to look any smugger than she already does.

"We should have done this at home," he huffs instead.

"I didn't know what we'd find here. Now, hush while I make this call…" she says, whipping out a prepaid cell phone. She dials quickly and Sherlock listens with interest as he applies spirit gum to his cheeks.

"Yeah, hi, this is Hafsa Davis from the Food Standards Agency. May I speak to the plant manager on duty?" she says brightly.

Sherlock stops applying his moustache and glowers at her. He'd been banking on throwing people off by a sudden surprise inspection. She rolls her eyes, adjusting her eye shadow again and continues.

"Yes, Mr. Phillips, Hafsa Davis here, FSA Inspector. Did they inform you about my visit today? No? How typical, I do apologise. I'm newly assigned this district and they were supposed to schedule a tour for me today. Is there any way you can fit us in? This is an unofficial tour, seeing as though you just passed inspection, just so that I can get my bearings." Her voice was enchantingly disarming, a little scattered, beseeching but not obsequious. After a pause she puts on a little moue of regret.

"Oh, yes, it was a surprise for me too. Peterson took a rather sudden sick leave. I get the feeling it's serious but we've not been told anything. Whatever it is, it's best to let the family deal with it for a bit before sending any well wishes, that's what I think."

Another pause. "Thank you so much, Mr. Phillips, I consider this a great personal favour. My assistant and I will be there in fifteen minutes. Looking forward to meeting you." She hangs up.

"Why in hell did you let them know we were coming?" Sherlock shouts in exasperation.

"Oh you wanted to catch them off guard and scare them all to death with a surprise inspection?" Mary snaps, putting the final touches on her makeup.

She turns to him, and he's privately astounded at how very different she looks.

Eyes so dark they're basically all black glare out from beneath beautifully formed dark eyebrows that set off light brown skin, the powder perfectly fading into her natural skin colour by her ears.

She unwinds a long, dark scarf and began fashioning it into a hijab, stabbing pins into it as if to accentuate her next remarks.

"Since that worked so well at Baskerville? Sherlock, you may be a brilliant detective but you're a bloody awful spy. Take your lead from me and use that big, gorgeous brain of yours to deduce the hell out of this place. We're getting the full tour, stem to stern. How do I look?" She smoothes graceful folds over the neckline of her sweater.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow and plucks the pencil from her fingers and begins shading in his eyebrows, using the rear-view mirror.

"Unrecognisable, though you could have picked a better name. 'Lioness' isn't very subtle," he mutters.

"Hafsa's a beautiful name," Mary says firmly. "Besides, do you really think a tea plant manager by the name of Samuel Phillips the Third is going to know what it means?"

Though Sherlock strives mightily to contain it, a smile curves up the corners of his lips. Mary chuckles, relishing the tingle of adrenaline that courses through her veins.

Infiltrating a tea factory is a far cry from setting up to take out a government sanctioned mark, but it's also a far cry from putting the kettle on in the kitchen, and she's excited.

She can tell Sherlock is too. He finishes blending in the edges of his hairpieces and looks at her with a busy, distracted, earnest expression that is so un-Sherlockian that he is momentarily unrecognisable.

"Perfect," she laughs. "One last thing, though," she continues and Sherlock feels a frisson of tension scurry down his spine at the tone of her voice.

"If I see Moran, I'm taking him down," Mary states. "Not so as anyone will see. But I'm killing that motherfucker if I get the chance."

"Mary, you can't," Sherlock says quickly. "It's not just the bombs they planted below Baker Street. If you kill him before this plan comes to fruition he has assassins-"

Sherlock stops talking, arrested by Mary's narrow-eyed gaze. Her lips curve unpleasantly and she looks down at her hands and fidgets with her rings.

"There are four," she says quietly. "Maybe five people in this world that could take me down. Moran contacted only one. She... she owes me more-" and Mary cut off, swallowing her own voice. She pauses to gather herself, blinking rapidly. "Owed me more than he could pay her," she says quietly, and when she lifts her eyes to meet Sherlock's his heart clenches with the pain he sees there. Hafsa. Both name and disguise make more sense now.

"There is no other contract that means anything out on me or you or the rest of our family." She stares at him quietly. "Moran doesn't know that she is now…unavailable." Mary blinks rapidly again. There's no time to redo makeup.

Mr. Philips is more than co-operative. He's positively effusive in his willingness to help the FSA in any way possible. They start at the beginning of the plant and work their way down to the end over the course of an hour and a half.

By the time they make it to the last room, where the tea is portioned into bags, the light coming through the banks of windows stationed high on the factory walls finally dims to nothing. It's late, around 7:30, and the rest of the shift has already left.

Mary sees Sherlock's eyebrows twitch and his hand jiggle at his side as Phillips describes how gas is wafted into the tea packages as they are sealed to preserve the tea in its freshest state.

Mary feels Sherlock surreptitiously take her hand in his as Phillips continues with his explanation of this machine's functions.

Sherlock taps his forefinger and middle finger against the inside of Mary's palm in Morse code.

"Gas. Drug," he taps.

Goosebumps prickle along Mary's arm as she assimilates the meaning behind that. In the room directly below them, there is a giant tank of nitrogen that feeds the machine. And somewhere near, there is a canister of poison being mixed with the gas used to pack the tea and keep it fresh. It's the only way that makes sense.

Given the low dosage of the drug in every tea bag, the canister could be very small... indistinguishable among the other pipes and pieces and paraphernalia that make up the machines.

"So, that's it, from beginning to end," Peterson says, squinting proprietarily at the machinery in front of them.

"Thank you, Mr. Peterson," Mary says warmly, shaking his hand. "You've been so thorough and so kind to give up so much of your time to help me out. I wouldn't dream of holding you hear any longer. It's so late. Everyone else seems to have left."

"Yes, the plant slows down during the evening, but it never really stops. We have a skeleton crew of cleaners, mechanics and engineers that look over the machinery every night and keep it in good repair," Peterson explains as they make their way towards the exit.

"Night shift is rough," Sherlock says in the nasal, tenor voice he has assumed for this job. "Must see a lot a turnover."

"Yes, yes. Mostly with the mechanics though. Just hired two new ones last week in fact, to fill the gaps." Philips says, well pleased that his plant is operating at peak performance.

They arrive at the doors and Mary and John see a group of men and women filing into the plant, wearing tool belts and carrying the various implements of their trades.

Mary shakes Peterson's hand, aware of the sudden tension in Sherlock's posture. She strives not to succumb to the urge to watch the workers walking in across the room.

She and Sherlock leave through the exit with a last farewell and make their way towards the car, parked all alone some distance from the building. Sherlock flips out his phone and starts texting immediately after they are out of sight of the door.

"Updating John," he says quietly. "Since we won't be home for some time."

Mary nods, increasing the pace. "Moran?" she asks.

He nods curtly. "One of the mechanics. Third one through the door," Sherlock says, texting again.

"Did he recognise us, do you think?" she asks as she opens the car boot and takes off her grey sweater and puts on a great many other things, replacing her hijab with a black knit cap. Sherlock sheds the ill-fitting suit, revealing black shirt and trousers.

"Our disguises were adequate, but the presence of something out of the ordinary like unscheduled inspectors will almost certainly have alerted him," Sherlock says tensely. "I have alerted Mycroft, but we can't wait, Mary. We can't give him the chance to remove the device and disappear."

"So let's go," Mary says, checking the placement of her holsters one last time and starting back towards the plant. Sherlock takes his gun and follows her. His phone buzzes.

I'm on my way. Careful. Love you both. -JW

"Shite," Mary mutters, glancing down at her own phone. They move faster, each hoping to finish this before John gets there. They are an hour from Mycroft's. Mary catches Sherlock's eye. A lot can happen in an hour.

They skirt the building, not really caring whether they're seen or not. They enter through the rear service doors and immediately descend to the basement level.

Sherlock mentally superimposes the mental map of the plant he's built on what he's seeing around them and points to the left, toward the room housing the nitrous tank and Baskerville drug.

Mary nods and follows. There is mechanical noise all around them. The omnipresent whirring of parts and hissing of steam cloaks their sounds as they move carefully forward. Mary is uncomfortably aware that it also cloaks anyone else's approach.

She slides forward behind Sherlock, her eyes darting everywhere and her senses alert for movement.

She pauses momentarily, hearing a metallic scrape somewhere to her right. Sherlock puts distance between the two of them, not realising she's stopped. Mary's muscles relax in what, for her, is a cultivated reaction to stress.

She can sense the watcher, the follower or followers. She knows she's being stalked. The tenseness of Sherlock's spine, his clipped gait tells her that he feels the same way and that he's not able to do anything about it.

She moves forward to close the gap between them, her Walther in hand. Sherlock jerks suddenly to the right trying to dodge something that shoots out of the machinery to his left before staggering and dropping legless to the ground.

Mary jerks quickly and a dart flies past her cheek and hits the ground next to her. She looks up and to the left, still moving, retracing the angle of the projectile and sees a shadow dodge away behind the whirring equipment.

She leaves Sherlock, melting into the aisles of humming parts, silently moving, checking all points. She's not used to being on the defensive-not used to being reactionary instead of proactive.

She hefts a combat knife into her other hand. Close quarters could make a gunfight impossible. There is an odd eddy of air behind her and it is all the warning she needs. She abruptly pivots, pitching her entire weight backwards and feels her elbow connect satisfactorily with a sternum.

She throws her head back, assessing the approximate height of her attacker-short-and connects with the bridge of a nose. She doesn't pause but uses what's left of her momentum to spin, swinging fist and knife around in a controlled left hook.

Her fist smashes into the face of her attacker, the blade following its path, carving deeply across cheek and nose. He opens his mouth to scream but before he can even draw enough breath she's pulled her punch and buried the knife to the hilt in his throat. He drops with a gurgle and she spins again, gun swinging toward the inevitable second assailant closing on her.

She's a millisecond too late.

The tall man in front of her bats her hand aside, adding to the momentum of her swing by grabbing and yanking her wrist further in the same direction, causing Mary to spin towards the bank of machines on her right. The man closes in from behind, pinning her gun hand above her, immobilising her against the metal plates with his body just long enough to punch a dart into her neck.

He abruptly lets her go and backs away, but it's too late for her. Weakness surges through her muscles and her vision tunnels alarmingly. She sags against the metal. The last thing she sees before darkness claims her is Moran's cold eyes glaring down at her.


End file.
